


A Rainbow in my Heart

by airandangels



Category: Tintin (Comic)
Genre: M/M, mush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airandangels/pseuds/airandangels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because I ship Tintin/Chang, and think that racing off to Tibet to rescue someone on the strength of a dream and a hunch is the height of romance.<br/>First chapter takes place 'between panels' in the last few pages of <i>Tintin in Tibet.</i> Rest of the story should be considered as 'between books.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The first night, camping on the mountainside, Chang could not stop shivering. His fever had subsided with aspirin from the first aid kit. He was simply cold, although Tintin had given up his sleeping bag for him, and they were crowded together, three (plus a dog) in a two-man tent. The Captain, dead tired, had fallen asleep as soon as he lay down, so it was no good asking him to give up his bag too. 

‘It’s all right,’ Tintin said, quietly so as not to disturb the Captain, although if he wasn’t woken by the sound of his own snores it was hard to know what would do it. ‘Snowy and I’ll keep you warm. Snowy, you lie on his feet. And I’ll get as close as I can and put my arms round you. There.’ He curled up to Chang’s back, wishing there were more he could do. The town was a couple of days’ walk away, and then a few more to reach the monastery... he felt helpless, with a nasty worm of worry in the pit of his stomach that after all he’d been through to find him and save him, Chang might slip away from cold or exhaustion before he could bring him home.

‘Thank you,’ Chang whispered when his teeth had stopped chattering. ‘I feel warmer, and safer too. You know, the yeti used to keep me warm like this sometimes.’

‘I bet he made a better blanket than I do.’ _Oh, I wish I were a big hairy monster!_

‘You’re doing a good job. Snowy, too.’

‘He’s a very warm dog.’ Tintin’s face, for that matter, felt very warm; he hoped that heat wasn’t going to waste and would reach Chang. He pressed his cheek against the back of his head. Chang’s hair was oily and dirty from his long spell in the wilderness, but he could hardly mind that now.

‘Tintin...’

‘Yes?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I dreamed about you. I dreamed you were lost, and hurt, and you needed me. When I heard you were dead, I realised it had to be a mistake. From then on it was just a matter of finding you.’

‘I dreamed about you, too. Well, I often dream about you.’

‘So do I. I mean you. I don’t dream about - no, I do dream about myself, but...’ 

‘It’s as if you’re visiting me,’ Chang said, and he sounded as if he were smiling. ‘Often I dream about you just before a letter comes. And when you were on your way to the moon and back, I dreamed of you every night, terrible worried nightmares that you were lost in space.’

‘I wish you could have been with me. Though we had too many people on that rocket as it was.’

‘I’ve lost the little bottle of moon-dust you sent me,’ Chang said, and the smile was gone. ‘I’m so sorry. I brought it with me, as a sort of lucky charm, but it got lost in the crash.’

‘It’s all right. It can’t have been very lucky, then.’

‘Perhaps it was, though. I should have died; I have no idea why I didn’t.’

‘Anyway,’ Tintin said, trying to be more positive, ‘I have a bottle just like that at home. Remember I told you, you’ll keep one and I’ll keep one? So we’ll just get another bottle and divide the dust between them.’ 

‘Thank you.’ Chang rolled over and wrapped his arms around Tintin in return, flustering him dreadfully. Chang’s cheek was against his; the cheekbone felt sharp, too close to the skin. He absolutely must get him properly fed again. He closed his eyes and held tight, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

It was a long, hard slog to get to the town, Tintin and Haddock having to move slowly in order to carry Chang between them. The Captain decided to keep everyone’s spirits up by telling seafaring stories, and when he ran out of those, or at least the ones he said he could tell in such young company, he and Tintin took turns telling Chang about Marlinspike and the good times they would have there. This tended to devolve into talking about what they would have to eat. They were giving Chang the lion’s share of their food, despite his protests, and the Captain particularly was feeling hungry. He was waxing lyrical about Nestor’s way with a full English breakfast when they came in sight of the village.

It was easier going on the way to the monastery, Tintin sticking close to the litter on which Chang was carried, even when he was not taking his turn as a stretcher-bearer. They talked about photography, which was a new interest of Chang’s, and as he was feeling a bit stronger, he sat up from time to time to take pictures of the landscape with Tintin’s camera.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I could take the photos to go with your articles, and travel with you. I’ll need to finish school first, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Tintin, a trifle disingenuously, since he had left school the instant he was allowed to get a job with a newspaper, but then he hadn’t had parents keen on education, which Chang definitely had. Mr and Mrs Wang, now living in Hong Kong, were sending him to one of the best private schools in the colony and were happy to pay for him to go to university in Europe. It was far more, materially, than his birth family could ever have given him and he was sometimes uncomfortable about accepting their generosity.

‘I will have to work very hard and be very successful to pay them back,’ he said, reaching back from the litter with one hand to hold onto Tintin’s. ‘And to thank you for saving my life, I have to do something really worthwhile with it.’

‘I just want you to do what _you_ want with it, and be happy. I’m sure that’s the main thing your parents want too.’ Tintin gave his hand a squeeze through his gloves.

‘It isn’t quite like that in China,’ Chang said seriously. ‘I need to help support them in their old age - of course, my adoptive father is quite elderly already, and they have a real son who is grown and taking good care of them already. But I need to help.’ Tintin found it a little sad the way he kept saying ‘adoptive father’ and ‘real son,’ as if he weren’t really part of their family, but he understood that it was just Chang’s humility talking. From letters he’d had from Mr Wang, he knew the old man loved him just as much as Didi - he referred to the two as ‘my sons.’ Perhaps for Chang it was also a way of keeping faith with his original family, showing that he hadn’t forgotten them in favour of his wealthy adoptive one.

When they reached the monastery, Tintin felt as if he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. They were far safer now. Once the pageantry and fuss of their welcome was over, they were given a huge meal of good plain food, allowed to bathe in plenty of clean hot water, and left to rest in comfortable rooms with dreamlike richly painted walls. Tintin rolled Chang in blankets until he looked like a large woollen cigar, and asked, laughing, ‘Now are you warm enough?’

‘Perfectly,’ Chang replied, his cheeks red and his eyes glinting. ‘I’m going to bake in this!’

‘Good.’ Tintin flopped down beside him and pinched his nose. ‘You look like a roly-poly pudding. I’ll ask Nestor to make you one when we get home.’

‘It’s so kind of you and the Captain to let me stay at your home.’ Chang squirmed until he could get his arms free, folding them on the outside of the blankets.

‘Well, it’s really the Captain’s home. I just sort of fell into living there, when I realised I was staying there so often it didn’t seem worthwhile to keep paying the rent on my flat. I had my things moved and that was that.’

‘Has he ever spoken of adopting you? The way the Wangs did for me?’

‘No. It’s not really like that. Though I suppose we do feel like a family together, him, me and Professor Calculus.’ He paused, trying to work out the best way to say it. ‘You could be part of the family too, you know. When you’re ready to come over and study... you could come to us in your holidays, or for weekends if it was close enough, we would love to have you. _I_ would love to have you,’ he concluded, more honestly. Captain Haddock would be happy to have Chang there, but he didn’t _want_ him there as Tintin did; why should he?

Chang reached for his hand again, lacing their fingers together. ‘I would be so happy,’ he said, and then had to stop to wipe tears from his eyes.

‘Oh, don’t cry if you’re happy,’ Tintin said, although his own eyes were threatening to spill over. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and wiped at Chang’s cheek. ‘Have you got a rainbow in your heart again?’ He meant to make Chang smile, remembering that little speech of his at the farewell dinner so long ago, but it made both of them worse, so that they just had to hug each other and shed a few more tears of happiness and relief and deep, dear love. When the kiss happened, he couldn’t tell whose idea it was, and it didn’t seem wrong or strange at all. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided to continue, because these two are just so sweet together, and to write from Chang's POV for a little bit.

That one kiss was all they had time for before the Captain came back from his bath, in good spirits and singing about the drunken sailor. Chang thought it must show as clearly as if it were painted on their faces what they’d been doing, but Haddock seemed cheerfully oblivious. He dug a pack of cards out of his backpack and suggested they have a game, and it would have been rude to say no. Chang sat up in his bundle of blankets and did his best to play intelligently, although his mind was an abject muddle. 

He was so acutely aware of Tintin that he seemed to fill the room and draw the air from his lungs, but at the same time he was conscious of the polite awkwardness he still felt about Captain Haddock. Some of it, he had to admit to himself, was plain jealousy. He selfishly wanted to be Tintin’s only dear friend, and he was ashamed of that, so he felt uncomfortable with the _other_ dear friend who had been so utterly generous in coming all this way to help Tintin find him. He was nothing to Captain Haddock; all the risks he’d taken and the trouble he’d willingly gone to had been for love of Tintin. That put Chang in a very awkward sort of debt to him; he absolutely had to be loyal and helpful to the Captain for the rest of his life, even though they had no relationship. They were getting to know each other now, and Haddock had been unfailingly friendly and kind to him, which of course made him feel worse. If he’d at least seemed to resent Chang a _tiny_ bit, it would have been easier, which he knew was completely unreasonable.

 _It will get better,_ he told himself, _and we’ll all be friends together. But Tintin will be special to me, and I’ll be special to him, won’t I?_ He got distracted gazing at Tintin’s hands holding his cards, his dear look of concentration, his rosy cheeks and snub nose and expressive mouth, the lips that had just touched his and made his heart thump so hard it had hurt his two cracked ribs. An awful thought occurred; had he made Tintin kiss him? Had it been all his idea? It had felt as if they both moved at the same time but perhaps he’d imagined that. Tintin was the most pure-hearted and noble person he’d ever met, and if he had spoiled their friendship by forcing a kiss on him he would be miserable forever. He risked trying to make eye contact, and got such a sweet smile in return that he forgot about being miserable forever and sat there in a happy pink cloud until Haddock growled at him to play a thundering card before his beard got any longer.

After lights out, after Haddock had begun to snore, Chang rolled closer to Tintin’s sleeping mat and whispered, with a total lack of truth, ‘I’m still a bit cold.’

‘Come here, then,’ Tintin whispered back, and folded his arms around him and drew him in close, the two of them nested together like spoons, Tintin’s chest to his back. It was the best feeling in the world, next to that kiss. ‘Go to sleep, my dear, dear Chang. You need lots of sleep. I’m -’ he broke off to yawn ‘- I’m going to take care of you.’

Over the next week he did exactly that, so devotedly that the Captain told him he’d missed his calling and should have gone into nursing. The Captain was getting restive, having run out of tobacco and sorely in need of a strong drink. He brightened up considerably towards the end of the week, when he managed to get hold of a local liquor called raksi, got slightly tipsy in mid-afternoon and regaled them with the tale of Sir Francis Haddock, with partial re-enactment. Chang, feeling a lot stronger by then, reciprocated with the legend of the Monkey King.

They were never alone long enough for there to be another kiss, or even a discussion of the kiss, and Chang felt increasingly shy of even bringing it up. Surely, if Tintin had wanted to kiss him again, he would have done so at night when Captain Haddock was asleep. If he didn’t, he was being a wonderful friend, not behaving any differently, still being warm and affectionate, holding him in his arms and talking softly to him, telling him the story of any adventure he asked for, until they both slept.

At last he was well, and they set off for home. At least, he’d thought he was well, but the horseback ride and the train ride and the plane travel exhausted him. When the plane engines started, he was so nervous that he had to grab Tintin’s hand and grip it tight until they were safely in the air. Any time they hit turbulence, he seized it again. It was a long time before he fell asleep, his head on his friend’s shoulder.

Arriving in Europe seemed unreal. Here he was in Tintin’s country, which had happened again and again in his dreams, though it felt nothing like that. In the dreams it was misty and cool, but in fact it was a bright sunny day when they got out of the airport. Captain Haddock’s servant Nestor had come to meet them with a huge car, and after they loaded their luggage into its boot they loaded themselves into its back seat, and although he had sincerely meant to watch out the window and see everything they passed, he slept again, leaning on Tintin, and waking only as they pulled into the long driveway of Marlinspike. Tintin had dozed off too, and smiled at him sleepily as they unfastened their seatbelts and unfolded their cramped legs.

‘Come on, you two! Look alive! Anyone would think you hadn’t just taken the Tibetan Rest Cure!’ Haddock was leading the way up the front steps, Snowy running at his heels, the front door was opening, a venerable man with a bald head and glasses looking out, and a sleek Siamese cat flowing out of the doorway to weave around the Captain’s ankles in greeting, almost tripping him up.

‘We’re home,’ Tintin said, and squeezed his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and kissing, la la la.

Tintin didn’t usually suffer from jet-lag, but he felt tired out and glad to go to bed early. He lay in his own familiar room, Snowy lying warm and heavy across his shins, missing Chang, who was in the guest bedroom next door, but not beside him, warm and trusting with his soft soot-black hair brushing his cheek. Chang _trusted_ him, and he had to remember that, and not do anything unworthy of that trust. He remembered the kiss, and would probably always remember the kiss, since it had been his first, but Chang was far too innocent for it to have meant to him what it did to Tintin.

He rolled over, drawing a whine and grumble of protest from the dog, and hugged his pillow, and tried to make do with that. Eventually, surely, he’d be able to dismiss these feelings again, the way he’d managed to when they first came up when he was twelve or so and developed a painful crush on his scoutmaster. Then he could live properly again. This really wasn’t anything more than that, he told himself, and eventually slept, and dreamed he and Chang were rolled up in the same blanket together, kissing and embracing while for some reason an orchestra of identical detectives played “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” and flocks of blue parrots flew by.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ the Captain asked, gruffly but not unkindly, as they sat down for breakfast. Chang had not yet appeared. ‘You look half hung over.’

‘I didn’t sleep all that well. I’m sure to tonight, though. I’m going to take Chang all over the grounds, and show him the woods and the river - I thought we’d take a picnic with us.’

‘Good idea. He’ll enjoy that. I say, Tintin - I’m sorry I ever thought he’d be like Abdullah. He’s a thoroughly nice lad. Salt of the earth. I see why you’re so fond of him.’

‘Thanks, Captain. I’m just glad he wanted to come and stay after all - I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d wanted to go right home again.’

Across the table Professor Calculus lowered his newspaper with a crackle and fixed Tintin with a reproachful stare. ‘I’m becoming concerned about your consumption of champagne, young man.’

‘HOME AGAIN, Professor.’

‘Yes, yes, it was all very well to open a bottle to celebrate your homecoming last night, but you’re to lay off now, d’you hear?’

‘I hardly finished my first glass.’ To tell the truth, he’d decided it was in no way a good idea to get tipsy near Chang.

‘It may be first class, but you can still overdo it!’

‘ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, PROFESSOR.’

‘There’s no need to shout. I’m just a little hard of hearing in one ear.’ Calculus disappeared behind his paper again with a harrumph.

Chang entered the room at that point, in clothes Tintin had lent him, one of his old yellow shirts and a pair of blue jeans that he had bought but then felt foolish wearing, as if he were trying to be a cowboy again. He’d _given_ the shirt to him, but it still made him feel very odd to see him wearing it. He’d never got around to having the trousers hemmed and Chang wore them turned up more times than he had, his thin ankles showing above the cloth slippers he’d acquired in Tibet, since Tintin’s shoes wouldn’t fit him.

‘Good morning!’

‘Morning, Chang,’ said the Captain affably, pushing a chair out for him with his foot and ringing the bell for Nestor to bring in another breakfast. ‘Sleep all right?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Chang said politely, although his eyelids looked a little puffy.

‘Good morning. I’ve quite a day planned for us.’ That got him a lovely, shy smile, and his idiot heart went pit-a-pat again.

The morning was all right, though; they walked all through the gardens, with Chang staring and exclaiming that it was just like pictures in a book.

‘I know that sounds silly. It _should_ look like the pictures. But somehow they always seemed... not quite real.’

‘I know what you mean! When I arrived in China I kept feeling amazed that the countryside really looked like those scroll paintings you see in museums. I’d always thought those landscapes were just sort of stylised.’

They’d roved through the woods and he’d shown Chang all the trees and birds and little creatures he could identify (the red squirrels had particularly delighted him), they’d climbed trees and had a mock duel with sticks and crawled under fallen trees and scaled rocks and slithered down muddy banks, breathless and laughing. It had been perfect and he’d said and done nothing to spoil it.

At last they came down to the bank of the little branch of the Marlin river that flowed through the grounds, and Tintin shrugged off the knapsack he’d been carrying and got out the picnic things. An old travel rug to sit on, bottles of ginger beer, a wicker box that he had packed with sandwiches and a broken-up slab of chocolate fitted in around the sides. They threw themselves down and ate voraciously, then lay on their backs gazing up at the sky and picking out shapes in the clouds.

‘There’s another dragon,’ Chang pointed out.

‘Dragons are easy. But _that_ one is a perfect rabbit, and I spotted it first.’

‘That’s not a rabbit.’

‘It is so.’

‘I could take a picture of that cloud and show it to a hundred people and none of them would say it was a rabbit.’

‘Rubbish!

‘Actually, pictures of clouds is a good idea. I should take some. I wish I’d brought a camera today.’ Chang folded his arms behind his head, drawing up one knee and crossing the other ankle over it. Without really thinking about it, Tintin copied him, mirroring his position. Snowy was lying at their feet, asleep with his belly turned up to the sun.

‘You could use one of the bathrooms in the Hall as a darkroom,’ he suggested. 

‘I couldn’t. I’ve put you to far too much trouble as it is.’

‘It wouldn’t be any trouble at all. We have at least three that nobody ever uses. You can take some lovely artistic shots of the house and gardens and give them to the Captain as a thank-you present before you go home. We can go into town tomorrow and get whatever you need - and some clothes to fit you, too.’

‘But the money my father promised to wire hasn’t arrived yet.’

‘That’s all right. It’ll be my treat. I’ll get you a camera, too, any sort you want, you don’t have to borrow mine. Don’t argue - I’m just equipping you so you can be my photographer.’

‘Really?’ Chang’s face lit up as he turned his head towards him. ‘You really want me to go on adventures and investigations with you?’

‘Of course. We’ll do a series of travelogues. There’s no end to the places we can go.’ Tintin beamed back, a great warmth of happiness growing under his ribs.

‘But you’ve been to so many already. You’ve been to the _moon.’_

‘Oh, nonsense! I’ve never been to Australia or Polynesia. Or Japan. There’s still vast tracts of South America that I haven’t visited - and Africa - I’ve only seen a bit of Egypt and the Congo. Scandinavia. The Poles! And if one day we’ve been everywhere on earth, even to the bottom of the sea in a diving-bell, we’ll just ask Professor Calculus to build us a bigger rocket and shoot off to Mars.’

‘Oh, Tintin!’ Chang rolled over and hugged him, pressing his lips to his cheek, and he went tense all over. The tension bled into Chang, and he loosened his arms and drew back. ‘I’m sorry... you don’t want to any more... that was stupid of me.’

‘It’s not your fault, it’s mine.’ That sweet rising heat had turned to slushy cold and dropped down into his belly. ‘I shouldn’t have...’ But there was still just a little flicker of warmth, because that kiss had definitely been Chang’s own idea.

‘You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve been so kind to me, and I have to go and spoil it, and be disgusting...’ Chang rolled away from him, curling into a ball.

‘What? No! You’re _not_ disgusting. You mustn’t think that.’ He lifted himself up on one elbow, with no idea what to do, how to comfort Chang, when putting his arms around him would clearly be wrong.

‘I am. You just want to be friends and be healthy and normal and good, and all I want to do is kiss you.’ The last words were muffled by Chang’s hands over his face, but Tintin heard them well enough. His heart gave a great painful kick of excitement and his mouth dropped open.

‘That’s exactly what I thought about you,’ he said, when he could remember how to talk.

‘What?’ Chang rolled back towards him, his face flushed and tearstained. ‘But I _kissed_ you in the first place!’

‘I thought I kissed _you._ I wasn’t sure! It seemed all right at the time but then I couldn’t tell and didn’t know how to ask you and I... I funked it, I suppose.’

‘Then...’ Chang said, and paused doubtfully. ‘Then even if I’m disgusting, you’re the same way. Really? Because I dream about kissing you and... and going to bed with you.’ His cheeks grew redder as he said that.

‘In that case, I’m completely and utterly disgusting.’ He could feel glad tears pricking in the corners of his eyes, and smiled through them so that they rolled down his cheeks. ‘Why are we always crying?’

‘I don’t know.’ Chang reached out, hesitantly, touched his face, brushed the tears away with his fingers.

‘Really, I hardly ever cry.’

‘I love you.’ Just a whisper.

‘And I love you.’

‘And I think you’re the bravest, handsomest, noblest... oh...’ Chang gave up on words and hugged him tight, burying his face in Tintin’s shoulder and wetting his favourite blue jersey with his tears.

‘My dear, dear Chang... my sweet little...’ A sensible part of his mind was warning him that they were lying on the riverbank where they might be seen by anyone happening by in the meadow opposite. But why should anyone go by in the meadow, and perhaps if they did they would only think Chang was a girl, he was short and slim and more girls wore trousers these days... and holding him like this felt too wonderful to stop. No blankets or sleeping bags between them. His heart was pounding, and Chang’s hair was soft against his cheek. He turned and kissed the top of his head, breathing in the smell of his clean scalp. 

‘You’re so lovely.’ He wanted to say something romantic, that Chang was like a lotus blossom or something, but he knew he would botch it. Chang lifted his face and looked up at him, their foreheads touching, oh, that face, golden skin and jet-black eyes and sharp cheekbones and delicate pointed chin, and his soft mouth still so uncertain. ‘Can I kiss you?’

‘Yes.’ It was just a breath against his lips, and then _lips_ against his lips, warm and soft and salty with tears. _Oh, Chang! I really don’t know how to kiss._ He did his best until they both needed air. Then they were laughing, softly, for pure happiness and relief rather than because anything was funny.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We should all have known I couldn't keep the whole story clean. Still, I wanted this to feel innocent and awkward.

Chang spent the next few days in a state of elation. They loved each other and nothing else mattered; even if he could never be worthy to be loved by someone like Tintin, he _was_ loved, and whenever they were alone they were holding hands or kissing, behind a tree, behind the long curtains in the Hall, even, with insane daring, in the changing room of a shop they’d been to for new clothes. He’d called Tintin in to show him, then when the curtain had closed behind him put his hands to his face, his soft cheeks, and kissed him softly and sweetly, and laughed to see how red he went, so his hair looked yellow by comparison. He loved Tintin’s red-gold hair, to run his hands over the soft, short-cropped back and sides, fingertips tracing the thin white scar where an assassin’s bullet had grazed him, and up over the cowlick that nothing would ever flatten. And his rosy fair skin, and his eyes that were sometimes blue and sometimes grey and sometimes almost green, depending on the light, and his strong, skinny body, his narrow shoulders, wiry forearms, bony wrists and firm quick hands. He’d given himself over completely to loving and admiring and wanting him.

The wanting was tricky, though; it made both of them nervous. It was thrilling to have Tintin breathing, between kisses, ‘I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,’ but neither had he, so neither of them really knew what to do or how to do it. Kissing, yes, absolutely, please, and they were getting better and better at that. They’d worked out how you could open your mouth and move your tongue against the other’s until it felt almost too good to bear, but they were both scared to go beyond that. At night Tintin would come into his bedroom, or Chang would go to his, and they would cling to each other in a sweaty tangle of lips, tongues and pyjamas before they had to pry themselves apart and try to go to sleep stiff and aching.

Several times he’d felt Tintin’s hard _thing_ brush against him, making his breath catch and his heart pound and his own thing pulse, and the same had to be true going the other way. He wanted so much to see it and feel it and know whether the hair around it was as red as on his head, but he was afraid of it too. As far as he could tell from those quick nudges, it felt bigger than his. Tintin was a little older, if no more experienced, and Chang wished he would take the lead; instead he was trying hard to be virtuous. He was always the one to moan ‘Oh dear, we’d better stop...’ and lever himself off the bed, or the grass, or in one case the floor of the cellar, where he’d taken Chang to show him the statue with the globe where pirate treasure had been hidden.

They’d always kept their clothes on, though there had been times when a shirt or pyjama jacket had ridden up and a hand had brushed over the bare skin of waist or back and it had sent electric shocks through both of them.

One afternoon on the riverbank, the weather was hot and humid, a lowering violet sky promising a storm before evening. Chang's shirt was sticking to his back with sweat, and Tintin had taken off that everlasting blue sweater and knotted it round his waist. They had walked through the woods again, where it was shady, if not exactly cool under the trees, and Tintin had backed him up against a great old beech and kissed him a long, long time, before prising himself away with a shudder. That was at least half of what had made Chang sweat, and it had left him feeling rumpled and disgruntled and impatient. 

He supposed, later, that was what made him bold enough to take his shirt off, unbuttoning the neck and pulling it off over his head. The air was so heavy that he felt hardly any cooler, but at least he felt a faint ruffle of breeze on his skin. Tintin’s eyes darted towards him and he completely lost the thread of his explanation of how different it was to drive a tank on Earth as opposed to the moon.

‘So, ah, er, it didn’t go too well, and won’t you get cold?’

‘I feel better like this. I was sweltering.’ Chang tried to smooth down his hair, pushed up on end by the shirt going over his head. Tintin reached out to help him tidy it, then let his hand drop onto his bare shoulder. It made him shiver.

‘See, you’re cold.’

‘I promise I’m not. You’re not either. Your top lip is all sweaty.’ Tintin kissed him then, and he tasted the sweat, saltier than tears. Shivers ran up and down his back, as if the breeze were stroking him, and just like that his thing was hard and he wished with all his heart that Tintin would touch it. He must know how, unless he was actually so pure and noble that he didn’t do that to himself, which was an awful thought; he’d be appalled at what Chang always had to do after Tintin left his bed in the early morning.

No; he wasn’t _that_ pure and noble, or there wouldn’t have been the two or three times when it hadn’t just brushed against him, Tintin had _pushed_ it against him and rubbed for half a second before he remembered himself and stopped, and somehow Chang just couldn’t find the courage to say ‘It’s all right, you can rub, I’d _like_ it if you did.’ He knew he needed to _say_ that, to give permission, but shyness shut him up every time. He didn’t really know what they might do together, apart from some dark rumours he’d heard at school that were probably more than half wrong, but rubbing together seemed like an excellent start. 

Now they were lying down in the grass, and its green crushed smell was rising around them, he could smell the daisies and the milky sap of dandelions, Tintin’s mouth was warm and wet on his and his hands were sliding up and down his bare back, the damp cotton of his shirt was pressed up to Chang’s chest and he could feel a button digging into his nipple. He crushed all his courage together and grabbed a handful of Tintin’s shirt at the back, pulling it out of his waistband, sliding his other hand up inside, skidding in sweat. They moved together and he could feel something hard against his thigh, pressing in and not pulling away. He clutched at Tintin’s back to keep him there, felt his hips twitch, and the heavens chose that moment to open. There was a faint patter of preliminary drops and suddenly they were drenched by a flattening grey torrent of rain.

The heat went out of the day in an instant, and they gasped as if they had been thrown into the river. It felt as if the river had been thrown onto them. Chang bit his lip, but began to giggle helplessly, then had to snort as rain fell up his nose. Tintin rolled off him and lay sprawled on his back, laughing as the rain plastered his shirt to his chest. After a minute the deluge stopped as suddenly as it began, though the dark sky promised more soon.

‘Snakes! Do you think that was a sign?’

‘It had better not be,’ Chang said, sitting up. There was a semi-dry patch of grass underneath him, though it didn’t last long. He felt much more cheerful than he had; he had reached out and pulled back, but felt pretty sure he could reach all the way next time. He picked up his shirt, which looked like a muddy rag now.

‘Come on,’ Tintin said, scrambling to his feet and reaching for Chang’s hand to pull him up. ‘We’ll have to run back to the house if we’re not to get caught again.’

They did get caught, making the last dash across the gravelled driveway from the shelter of the trees, slamming in through the grand front door and skidding on the glossy marble in puddles of their own making, hooting with laughter. The rain roared outside; Tintin’s forelock was plastered down and Chang’s hair was blinding him. He was trying to wipe it out of his eyes and Tintin was both helping and hindering him when they heard a faint, reproachful cough from a side door; Nestor was looking at the puddles and the muddy shirt and saturated jersey that had fallen to the floor as if they personally hurt him.

‘Sorry,’ Chang squeaked as Tintin grabbed his hand and towed him away up the staircase. Out of breath, they slithered into the bathroom next to Chang’s room, almost falling into the bath. Tinting caught him, grabbed him, pulled him close with an arm around his shoulders and the other around his waist, and kissed him so hard he thought his lips would bruise. He flung his arms around Tintin and kissed back with his heart thudding. _Something is going to happen,_ he thought, _something that’s never happened before._

Tintin drew back, stroking Chang’s saturated hair back from his face. ‘You’re about as wet as when I met you.’

‘Well, so are you,’ he said, foolishly, unable to stop smiling.

‘Would you help me off with my shirt?’

‘All right.’ Chang undid the buttons, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy. The one time he’d seen Tintin without his shirt, to take care of his wounded arm, he’d had a white vest on underneath. He didn’t have that today; it would have showed through the wet white cotton, which mostly just showed the flushed pink of his skin. Tintin was watching him, intently, a little nervously, his smile fading, though his eyes were still bright. They looked a deep grey at the moment. The last button slipped free; Chang took a deep breath and pushed the left sleeve down Tintin’s arm. There was the scar from that bullet wound, faded and shiny now, a horizontal dash across the bicep, like the Chinese character for the number one. He traced it with his forefinger, feeling the different texture of the skin.

‘Do you want to see another?’ Tintin asked, his voice low. He shrugged out of his right sleeve and lifted his arm, showing a similar but larger scar across his ribs, high on the side of his body. ‘I got that one after I’d met you. The start of that Black Island business.’ He shivered slightly as Chang’s fingertips explored the groove in his skin.

‘Are you cold?’

‘No. I feel pretty warm.’ There were goosebumps on his chest and arms, though. Chang bent sideways and kissed the scar, feeling Tintin flinch and hearing him gasp.

‘It doesn’t still hurt, does it?’ He lifted his head anxiously. 

‘It doesn’t hurt at all. Do you... I mean...’ He caught his breath again as Chang kissed the scar on his arm. 

‘You’re so brave.’ He put his hands to the sides of Tintin’s head and guided it down so he could kiss the scar there, the faintest, just a chalk-line on his scalp. ‘And so strong. Bullets can’t stop you.’

‘What about you? Floods and plane crashes and sub-zero temperatures can’t finish you off.’

‘Because you come and save me.’ A kiss on his lips, with his arms draped around Tintin’s shoulders, their chests and bellies pressed together with nothing between them but a film of water. He imagined he could feel Tintin’s heart beating against his, strong and hard. ‘You always save me.’

‘My Chang...’ Tintin’s hands wandered over Chang’s back as he kissed him, then up to his shoulders, stroking his neck, his hair. Chang could feel them trembling, steadying, trembling again. ‘Oh, how I love you...’ 

With a little rush of astonishment at his own nerve, Chang suggested ‘Let’s go to bed.’

‘Now?’

‘So we don’t catch a chill.’

‘Then we should take off our wet clothes,’ Tintin said earnestly. They undid each other’s belts and flies, breathing faster as they pushed the heavy soaked fabric down from narrow hips. There was no hiding how they felt in wet underwear, and Chang had time to think _Not that much bigger than mine, actually_ before Tintin pulled him in again, kissing him urgently and pressing the full length of his body against his. Their erections rubbed together through wet cotton, and heat and pleasure flowered in Chang’s belly.

‘I love you...’ He wasn’t expecting Tintin to pick him up; he was startled, but let himself be carried through the open adjoining door into his bedroom, and dropped onto his bed, and covered and embraced. Neither of them tried to hold back now, neither of them felt shy; they twined their arms and legs around each other and kissed joyfully, avidly, hungrily. Chang felt Tintin fumbling between them, trying to pull down the waist of his underpants, and reached down to help him, and got two warm, stiff shafts clasped in his hand, rubbing together, sliding over and over each other, both of them gasping and uttering little shaky cries as the sweetness built. Tintin came first, groaning as he slumped over, his full weight resting on Chang and smearing the warm white between them. After a moment he lifted himself a little, slid off to one side and reached down to bring Chang along with him, stroking him rapidly until he tensed and spattered his own belly, collapsing into a blissful afterglow.

For a long time neither of them spoke; there seemed nothing to say, but they looked into each other’s eyes, and softly touched each other’s faces, until their awe at what they’d just done gradually faded.

‘It feels different with you,’ Chang murmured.

‘Have you done that with someone else?’

‘Only by myself.’

‘Oh. Oh, of course.’ The worry went out of his eyes and he relaxed again.

‘I’ve only ever loved you.’

‘Only you.’ A soft, drowsy kiss.

They both wanted to sleep, but if they wanted to keep up any pretence of being normal, healthy boys with a wholesome friendship they couldn’t be found naked in bed at mid-afternoon. Grudgingly, they got up and washed, and Chang got dressed in dry clothes while Tintin crept to his own room in his dressing-gown to do the same.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look any different, and he wasn’t sure that he felt different either. He had done something perfectly new, and it had been wonderful, but he didn’t feel changed as he had thought he might. It ought to mean his innocence was gone. He leaned towards the mirror to try and see if his eyes looked different at all, but they looked the same as always, narrow and dark. Tintin came in at that point, hastily but decently dressed, hanging the dressing-gown on the back of the door.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, stepping up behind and putting his arms around Chang’s waist.

‘I thought I had something in my eye,’ Chang fibbed, embarrassed. ‘It’s gone, though.’ He twisted round to kiss Tintin, hands framing his face, stroking his soft cheeks that never grew bristle. _I love him, I love him, I love him._ ‘I think there’s something wrong with me. I want to do it all again.’

‘Then the same thing’s wrong with me too. We can tonight, as much as we want... imagine that... oh Chang, I haven’t made you do anything you didn’t really want to, have I?’

‘Not a thing.’ 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware of increasing smut levels. But then, they're behaving pretty much as you'd expect from boys of their age who have just discovered S-E-X.  
> Water is definitely the ruling element of this relationship, isn't it?

The photographs really were good. Anyone could point a camera at something, hold it steady and not get their fingers in front of the lens when they pressed the shutter, and that was how Tintin took pictures. They came out flat and accurate. Chang, on the other hand, took them with angles and framing and layers of depth, and clever, artistic things like that. He took a picture of Captain Haddock smoking his pipe, wreathed in smoke, that was good enough to hang in a gallery, although he vehemently denied that.

‘But if I took a picture of him like that, it would come out a snapshot. You made it a _portrait,’_ Tintin objected. ‘It shows his character, as well as what he looks like. I want an enlargement.’ They were in the dark-bath-room, everything looking strange in red light and black shadows, Tintin sitting on the edge of the bath while Chang developed his latest film with the equipment they had set out on the vanity.

‘All right. I’ll make you one after I finish these.’ Chang looked back over his shoulder and smiled. It was absurd how his smiles could affect him, Tintin thought; how they made his heart patter faster and his face grow warm. He would have thought that sort of thing only happened when you were just falling in love, and wore off once you had, well, consummated the relationship, but it didn’t seem to. A smile from Chang still made him feel light-headed, made him want to do something amazing and daring and heroic and lay the honours at his feet. He’d given him his moon dust, and his Syldavian medals, and a coin he’d saved from Sir Francis’ hoard, a vial with a fragment of phostlite in it, telling him ‘ _You_ are my treasure, my shooting star and my moon and my - my everything.’

‘Am I your golden pelican?’ Chang had asked him impishly, and they’d wrestled and kissed and made love and fallen asleep together, on a pile of old Persian rugs rolled up and stored in the cellar. He had never felt anything like the contentment of waking up to find Chang drowsing in his arms, one hand still inside the waistband of his pants. And he woke, and looked up at him, and smiled, and Tintin knew that he belonged completely and totally to Chang, and everything worthwhile he did from now on would be for him, even if nobody else ever knew it.

He felt guilty, of course, but not in any way that compelled him to stop. He bargained with the guilt at night; _let me have this one thing, this one lovely besetting sin, don’t I deserve a little bit after everything good I’ve done?_

He sat with the hard rim of the bath digging into his backside and admired Chang, his neat, graceful movements as he transferred photographic paper from one chemical bath to the next, and hung the finished pictures up to dry. As he stretched up to peg the portrait enlargement to the little clothesline strung across the corner of the room, Tintin stepped up behind him, wrapped his arms around his waist, and kissed the nape of his neck. That particular spot always made Chang squirm, his shoulderblades drawing together like bony wings.

‘Don’t, you’ll make me drop it.’ It was a pleased murmur, though.

‘It won’t _break._ It’s paper. And you’re so lovely, and I’ve been so patient...’ He squeezed gently.

‘I would be patient if you were writing.’ Chang sighed and leaned back against him. ‘For at least an hour.’

‘But then you’d come and kiss me, wouldn’t you? You’d lean over the back of my chair and kiss me on the ear.’ He kissed just under Chang’s ear, the side of his neck that was so silky, and slid his hands down over his stomach. 

‘Mm. Probably. Oh... would you be annoyed?’ Chang pulled his shirt up so Tintin’s hands skimmed over his bare warm skin, his stomach flinching lightly, pulling in for a moment before relaxing. He was ticklish there and his muscles fluttered when he was touched or kissed. 

‘No. I’d turn my chair round and you could sit on my lap.’ One hand circling on his belly, the other brushing down over the front of his trousers to find and squeeze his erection. ‘Come and sit on my lap now.’ He pushed his own stiff cock up against Chang’s bottom, nestling it into the dip in the middle. Once, when they were both highly excited, he’d got Chang to lie on his front while he rubbed his cock up and down between his buttocks until he came on his back, but that had felt selfish. He knew, in vague and unhelpful terms, what sodomy was but couldn’t work out how you could do that without hurting the other fellow and making a terrible mess, so he wasn’t sure _why_ it was done. Perhaps you took turns so you could both enjoy yourselves, but in that case why not just do as he and Chang did and enjoy yourselves at the same time?

Probably nothing they did was original, but since they were having to make it up as they went, each new thing felt like a wonderful invention. Kissing each other all over was an exploration, starting tentatively at the neck and venturing down, discovering sensitive spots they didn’t know they had. Chang was still too skinny; his lower ribs showed and his hipbones stuck out when he lay on his back, but he claimed he’d been like that anyway. 

‘You’re skinny too,’ he’d pointed out, pinching Tintin’s stomach, showing there was precious little flesh to pinch.

‘I know, but you’re just a little bird. If I didn’t know how tough you were I’d be scared of breaking you.’ That got him a punch in the arm, but only a gentle one.

Sitting on the edge of the bath was still uncomfortable, but worth it with Chang straddling his lap and kissing him, whispering ‘I love you,’ rubbing against him as he tried to open his fly.

‘Hold still... I can’t get you undone if you wriggle like that.’

‘Undo yourself too. I want to see it.’

‘It’ll look pretty odd in this light. All red and black.’

‘Still lovely. Ah, there it is.’

‘It’s not _lovely.’_

‘I think it is. I think it’s lovely and beautiful and gorgeous and I want to kiss it.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No I’m not. Do you want to see what it’s like? I think we should keep going until I’ve kissed you everywhere I can reach.’

‘Won’t that be nasty for you?’

‘I don’t see why. You had a bath this morning.’

‘I’d like to have a bath with you. We could fill this one now.’

‘No, I want to kiss your thing. Just let’s see if you like it, you can’t say you don’t without trying, and if you don’t I won’t any more.’

‘You really needn’t, Chang, it’s all right...’

‘I _want_ to. Every single bit of your body is beautiful to me.’

‘I’m used to my body being useful, not beautiful.’

‘It’s both. These lovely strong arms...’ Chang’s hands ran up and squeezed his biceps through his shirtsleeves. ‘They’re hard.’ One slender hand dropped into his lap and squeezed his erection, making him breathe in sharply through his teeth. ‘So’s this.’

‘Oh...’ That gentle rubbing took all the resistance out of him. He leaned his forehead on Chang’s chest and gave himself up to it, giving only a faint moan of protest when Chang got up and he had to make more of an effort to hold himself up. His knees were nudged apart, Chang knelt between his legs, the soft rubbing hand never left his cock, and then softer lips were touching the tender head of it. He put his hand over his own mouth to smother the sound that came out of him, pressing hard and breathing harder through his nose. So warm, and so soft, and the little tug of suction at the centre of each kiss, the sweetest feeling he’d ever had.

‘Mm?’ Chang was looking up at him. ‘Is it all right?’

‘It’s - it’s so much better than all right I can’t tell you.’ He had broken out in a sweat all over. ‘Keep going. Can you - can you open your mouth a bit, like - oh, oh, oh, _yes.’_ The wet of his tongue, all velvety, swirling around like when they kissed, and then he _sucked_ and that was the end of him.

He caught his breath leaning on Chang’s shoulders, thrilled and ashamed in equal parts. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said as soon as he could. 

‘What for?’ Chang asked, a little muffled.

‘Doing that in your mouth. Oh, how could I...’

‘I don’t care. I just want you to do it for me next. Fair enough?’ Chang looked up at him again, shaking his hair back from his eyes. ‘If it makes you go like that, I definitely want you to do it for me.’

‘I’ll try.’

So, when he thought he could move without collapsing jelly-legged, he sat Chang on the edge of the bath and knelt between his legs and kissed his prick, straight and blushing pink with sparse black hair at its root, twitching as he hesitantly used his tongue to stroke it, Chang moaning when he sucked the tip, pressing his legs together on Tintin’s shoulders. He had been worried about how it would taste, how it would smell, but it was lovely, so warm and stiff and eager, just a stronger version of the taste of Chang’s skin. He was close to spilling over when there was a tap at the door. They both froze, and Chang called out too quickly, his voice too high, ‘Don’t come in! The photos aren’t ready.’ Without meaning to, Tintin swallowed, which made his tongue move, and to his shock Chang came then, his hips bucking up. He felt the spurt against the roof of his mouth, and his tongue was flooded with salt. He pulled back to keep from choking.

‘Don’t worry.’ It was the Captain out in the hall. ‘I was just going to say, that Western you wanted to watch on television will be starting in ten minutes.’

Tintin swallowed again, frantically, seeing that Chang was well beyond speaking at the moment, and called back ‘Thanks, Captain! We’ll be out in a minute.’

‘Right, then.’ They stayed frozen as his footsteps moved away down the hall. Chang bent double, his head on top of Tintin’s, making a sort of whimper of desperate laughter.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but why did you _do_ that? Your tongue!’

‘It wasn’t on purpose!’

‘I thought he would _hear_ me!’

‘But you didn’t make a sound.’

‘I grunted.’

‘Hardly at all. It’s all right. Can you help me with mine, quick now? Just your hand’s all right.’ For all his shrinking from it at first, the intimacy of sucking Chang had made him hard all over again.

It didn’t take long, it never took long, and there’d be another time soon, but it was still terribly hard to concentrate on the Western, which he really had wanted to watch, with Chang sitting beside him on the sofa and Snowy curled up between them. They each patted him from time to time, taking the opportunity for their hands to brush against each other among the curls of his fur. He suddenly realised there was something he did feel properly guilty about: he was ignoring the Captain, and the Professor, and even Snowy, because he was in love. He actually had to shoo Snowy out of the bedroom because otherwise he sat and watched them with a bewildered expression on his face. He should take him out for a proper run and play some time soon... but he didn’t _want_ to if it meant missing out on some time he could spend alone with Chang. He didn’t like that in himself.

On the other hand, Snowy would always be here, and Chang would have to go home in two weeks’ time, back to his home and his school and his real life. Two weeks, and then no way of knowing when they might see each other again. He could surely be forgiven a little bit of pet-neglect in the meantime. He’d make it up.

That night they took a tent out into the grounds and camped in the river meadow, cooking their dinner over a little fire. As Tintin went to put a slightly burnt sausage in his mouth he caught Chang looking at him and blushing, which led to a shared fit of helpless laughter. They made love in the moonlight and the long grass, and lay curled together between two blankets, looking up at the stars, big and bright in the summer dark.

‘I can’t imagine what I’m going to do when you go away,’ he admitted.

‘I don’t even want to think about it.’ Chang held his hand, lacing their fingers together, stroking the heel of his hand with his thumb. 

‘How can I go on leading the kind of life I used to, when all I want is to be with you?’

‘And how can I go back to school and see my adoptive parents and act as if everything is normal?’

‘I’m going to miss you dreadfully. I always missed you, but it was different before.’

‘We can write to each other.’ It was so feeble that Chang laughed as soon as he’d said it. ‘And you travel all the time, so why not come to Hong Kong?’

‘By myself?’ Tintin turned his head to look Chang in the eye, to try to decide whether he was in earnest.

‘You could.’

‘I think that would hurt the Captain’s feelings.’

‘That’s true... I was just having a nice daydream where you’d take a house and I’d stay with you and we’d do whatever we felt like all the time.’ Letting go his hand, Chang rolled onto his front and propped himself up on his elbows. He picked a few blades of grass and started knotting them together.

‘We’re doing a lot of whatever we feel like as it is.’

‘I know, but wouldn’t it be terrible if the Captain found out? Or my parents?’

‘It would be pretty terrible if anybody found out.’

‘Would we go to prison?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose I should try to find out, at least so I know where we stand. I can ask people questions, after all. If they think it’s funny I can just say it’s a possible lead for a story.’

‘Be careful.’

‘I’m _always_ careful. You know that.’

‘Tintin! I mean it.’ Chang slapped his chest. ‘Getting shot at or blown up is one thing, getting arrested is another.’

‘I get arrested all the time. Well, actually, I haven’t been arrested in a while, but I certainly _used_ to get arrested all the time. I wonder if I’m losing my touch?’

‘You’re just showing off now.’

‘If I wanted to show off, I’d take you on holiday to Syldavia and show you my face on the stamps.’

‘Are you really on _stamps?’_

‘I’m on money, too! The ten-khôr note. Only one special issue, to commemorate the moon landing, but they’re real legal tender.’

‘Well, you don’t need to boast to impress me. Sometimes... sometimes I wish you hadn’t done quite as many impressive things, because then you’d be just mine. As it is you belong to History.’ He bowed his head over the plaited strand of grass he was making.

‘I don’t _love_ History. And I don’t live in Syldavia, on purpose. I’d get a swelled head.’

‘No you wouldn’t. Anyway, it’s silly of me to be jealous.’

‘I never thought of you being jealous.’ It was an odd thought, and it seemed unnecessary, but Tintin found it flattering all the same.

‘Well, what if when I’m back in Hong Kong you meet someone else you like?’

‘I’d be very surprised. I’ve never fallen in love with anyone but you.’

‘Ever at all?’

‘Ever at all.’ He pulled Chang’s hand away from his braiding and kissed it. ‘And even if I met someone I liked, I’d think, well, I like him but I _love_ Chang.’

‘Or her.’

‘Or her, but I’ve never been interested in girls at all.’ To tell the truth, he hardly knew any. You probably couldn’t count Signora Castafiore as a ‘girl,’ nor could you say you really ‘knew’ girls from school who you hadn’t seen in years, and whose names you were now not too sure about. It had never seemed to matter. Perhaps, in hindsight, that should have told him something. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about that. You only have two years to go. Then we’ll see each other all the time, and once you’ve got your degree you’ll be a free man and we’ll go all over the world together. You’ll win prizes for your photographs and make your parents proud.’

‘And when we’re not travelling, will we live together?’

‘Of course we will.’

‘Here?’

‘We might. Or somewhere else if you’d like it better. I wouldn’t want to be far from the Captain and the Professor, but we could work something out. We could live half the year in China and half in Europe. Or we could race off and live in America and be inconvenient for everyone.’ He wanted another of those smiles.

‘I’d love that,’ Chang said, crumpling up his plaited grass and throwing it away. He sat up, the blanket sliding off his shoulders, and looked towards the river. ‘We should go in swimming. It’s still so warm, and no-one will see us at night.’

‘I’ll race you.’

They crashed into the water, gasping with shock at the cold, wallowing and tumbling together. The bottom here was soft silt with occasional smooth stones, and the clear water grew cloudy around their scrambling, kicking legs as they wrestled. Tintin was stronger but Chang squirmed like an eel, and was unscrupulous enough to use sneaky little kung-fu tricks that he didn’t know. Each ducked the other half a dozen times before they collapsed panting in the shallow water by the bank. 

‘You look so funny with your hair wet and flat,’ Chang said. He reached out and tried to ruffle up Tintin’s forelock, but the wet strands flopped down again.

‘That’s strange. Usually you can get anything of mine to stand up straight.’

‘Don’t be so grubby.’

‘You could try sucking it.’

‘Ha ha ha.’ Chang grabbed his ears and pulled his head down, took a mouthful and sucked. ‘Blah. Tastes like hair.’

‘I didn’t mean you to, you ridiculous...’ His mouth was stopped by a kiss, and they rolled together in the water, arms wrapped around each other and legs tangling, pushing, hips bucking and humping. 

‘Do you want to...’ Chang twisted in his arms, rolled over and offered his bottom. ‘Here?’

‘That’s not fair, though.’

‘Give me your hand here. Like that. Oh...’ Chang pulled his hand under his body, down to grip him, thrusting into his palm, and once he felt that, hot in the cool water, he stopped hesitating. The cleft between Chang’s buttocks was warm and soft and snug, and he pushed back against Tintin’s stroke, and the water stroked both their bodies as they moved. For a brief moment, at Chang’s urging, he tried to push inside him, but it simply wouldn’t go, and he wasn’t about to force anything that elicited such a sharp yelp of pain. He rolled Chang over and they finished face to face, rubbing together, kissing as the last aftershocks rolled through them.

‘I’ve just decided I’m not letting you go back. I’m not letting you go anywhere. You’re staying within arm’s reach of me for the rest of my life,’ Tintin murmured as his breathing slowed.

‘You’d get fed up with me after a while...’

‘It would be so nice until then, though.’

Chang began to shiver, so they got out of the water, put out the fire, made a not particularly effective attempt to dry themselves with their cast-off shirts, and rolled themselves up inside the tent, between two unzipped sleeping bags, with the blankets on top and Snowy sprawled over their feet.

‘I’m glad you thought it might turn cold at night,’ Chang said through chattery teeth. Tintin wrapped himself around him, rubbed the goosebumps from his arms, squeezed him close as he grew properly warm. ‘That’s perfect. You are my favourite blanket.’

‘You’re my favourite... cold person.’


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, epistolary!

My dear Tintin,

I’m writing to you from the plane to give myself something to concentrate on. I was so weepy when I boarded that the stewardess was worried about me, so now I am trying very hard just to be calm and collected to show that I am all right. I do not want to be afraid of flying all my life, but doing it on my own is very difficult. I wish you were here. Obviously.

If I can let go of your hands and walk away from you at the gate, I should be able to do anything.

Illinois over eyes outbreak wicker this altitude l mystery herbs argyle t.

Chang

P.S. Arrived safely, worn out, will post this in the morning. C.

 

My dear Chang,

I was so glad to get your letter. Please give my warmest regards to your parents and brother, and to Mr Fang Hsi-Ying if you should see him. Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus are well and send you their good wishes. Snowy sends a bark.

I have enclosed a book that I believe you will enjoy. Please let me know what you think.

Affectionately,

Tintin

 

(deciphered)

Dearest Tintin,

You should see my draft of this letter. Writing in your book cipher is _hard._ I was confused and rather hurt that you sent such a cold, polite letter until I worked out what you meant. Finding your little note inside the book helped (I did not eat it, although you used rice paper - I have a box I can lock and let’s not get carried away). I suppose Blue Lotus code isn’t secret enough, and this way is rather fun. I will be brief until I get better at it. I LOVE YOU. I dream about you every night (hot sweaty dreams). Tell me everything about what you do. I am back at school. I thought nothing about it would seem real after my time with you but very quickly the routine here is starting to feel like the only real thing and Marlinspike like a dream. Remind me it was real and will be real again.

All my love,

Chang

 

(deciphered)

My dear, dear Chang,

Thank you for playing along with my little game. I don’t know if it is necessary to be this secret, but it feels better. I couldn’t destroy your letters either. I have a safe little cache for them (I have a false-bottomed drawer in my desk, and when that fills up, I’ll find somewhere else - there are a thousand places to hide paper in an old house like this).

I know what you mean about it not seeming real. Everything goes on as if the middle of my life had not been pulled right out. I have needed to keep busy, so I’ve begun work on what I hope will be a book, about the Moon voyage. (If it doesn’t work out as a book, at least a series of articles. I haven’t tried to write something that long before, but it seems fitting.) When I have a few chapters bashed out I’ll send them to you - I would like to hear what you think.

I have also been trying, with a lot of embarrassment and not much success yet, to find out more about homosexuality. One can find any amount of medical and psychiatric information about what’s thought to cause it and how it might be cured, but I don’t want to cure the only thing that makes me love like this, and I am less interested in the cause than in what to do about it now. I want to talk to others who feel this way, but don’t know where to start. Hanging about in public lavatories doesn’t seem wise. Writing to men who have been publicly disgraced to ask them personal questions doesn’t seem decent. So I am spending alternate weekends in town, roving around, keeping my eyes and ears open for rumours of bars or clubs where such people might meet. I feel rather humiliatingly innocent. 

I am being very, very careful.

Your devoted

Tintin

 

(deciphered)

Dearest Tintin,

Be careful and then be more careful. But tell me what you find out. I’m terribly curious. I am working hard at school (like you, I need to keep busy in order not to dwell on sad thoughts), and getting better marks than I expected, as I am not very clever. To my great surprise a photo that I took for the school magazine was selected by my teacher for an international competition. I don’t expect it to win anything, but I was very touched and honoured by his choice. Photography is a great interest of his and he has been very encouraging and helpful, lending me several of his own books.

I took a risk and made a print of one of the pictures I took of you. In it, you’re asleep in bed, early in the morning, with a faint sunbeam stealing in through the curtains and across your sweet face. The light picks up the fine down on your cheekbone and makes it glow. I keep it in the locked box with your letters, and from time to time I kiss it, the way I kissed the original just after I took the photo.

Alhambra l mynah lost vehicle (I still like that code, even if it doesn’t suit some words so I get leftover letters),

Chang

 

(deciphered)

My dear Chang,

Oh, would that be your photo that I saw in the paper today? Second place in the Young Photographers’ World View contest? Not clever indeed. (I thought the first place-getter was nothing like as interesting.)

I didn’t know you were taking pictures of me sleeping. As long as I never see one of those in the paper, though, it’s all right. I keep that snap the Captain took of us in the garden under my pillow, and yes, I’ve kissed it a few times.

What is your photography-loving teacher like? Young or old? 

The Moon book is coming along well. I’m trying not to include too much technical detail, but to make it a really pacy, exciting narrative. There’s certainly enough action there.

The other project is finally starting to come along too. I managed to find out the name of a bar where _that kind of man_ is known to go, as well as a lot of theatre people. My first visit was rather spoiled by the fact that somebody recognised me, and I could forget asking anyone _else_ questions after that - I was surrounded by people asking _me_ questions. A week later, I went back in disguise. I’ve decided it would be a good idea to keep this disguise up for the whole thing - and after all, I can’t be the only man going to that sort of place in disguise, or in make-up for that matter. In disguise, my name is Theo Leclerc. I’m a student. I have brown, curly hair, olive skin and a small moustache. I wear a lot of black and try to seem intellectual.

I have been back enough times now to know the regulars, and I think I know which ones _they_ are, so now I have to overcome the shyness I suddenly feel and talk to them. I have _never_ felt shy about talking to strangers for a story, but of course this is a story I can tell only to you. I overheard them talking about a club called Le Petit Coin last time, so perhaps I’ll just go straight there?

Carefully yours,

Tintin & Theo

(Theo loves you too)

 

Dearest Tintin,

Having not wanted to get my hopes up or be boastful, I find myself disappointed that it was only second place. I would so have liked to bring that honour to my adoptive parents, and to my teacher, for all their faith in me and all their kindness and effort to help and guide me. I suppose Mr Lee is quite young, about thirty. Everybody likes him; he is quiet and funny and always takes time to explain, after class as well if you need him to. I made him late for his dinner last week, which was very bad of me.

I am worried about you going to strange places in disguise, but telling myself not to be foolish. You are _Tintin,_ after all. I want to say more but I am in a hurry, getting ready for a school trip tomorrow. I’ll take pictures and send some to you.

All my love,

Chang

 

Dear Theo,

I’m sorry, it can never be - I will only ever love Tintin. I hope you meet somebody nice at Le Petit Coin.

Sincerely,

Chang

 

My dear Chang,

Theo’s heart is broken. I am also telling myself not to be foolish, because I keep thinking about this Mr Lee and worrying that he thinks you are as beautiful as I do and this is why he spends so much time with you. I know this is stupid, so please don’t be upset by it. I was never jealous before.

Le Petit Coin was very interesting. There was a doorman and I thought I might not get in, but he waved me through. Inside there were only men, in a sort of lounge bar with a small band playing 1920s jazz in a corner. I’d thought they would all be one _type,_ but I was surprised; they ranged from young to quite old, and from perfectly unremarkable, respectable gentlemen to fantastic creatures in rouge and silk. There were also some rough types I would have expected to see in a tavern down by the docks, not in a rather elegant place like this. I felt anxious and obvious, and took a drink into a quiet corner to settle my nerves, which was the wrong place because at the table adjacent, two men were kissing.

I was just trying not to stare at them when a voice said ‘Your eyes are like saucers. Are you a neophyte, my dear?’ This is how I met Andrew, who has taken me under his wing. He has an Eton accent and describes himself as ‘one of the stately homos of Old England.’ I would place him at about fifty, with a round pink face and bright blue eyes and a green carnation in his buttonhole (he must dye them; I have never seen him without one and they’re real flowers). He has been extremely kind to Theo and I don’t think he even expects anything in return but pleasant conversation. I seem to remind him of himself as a young man, and he quite sympathises with my confusion and need to understand more about this secret world that I seem to belong to, but don’t feel like a part of.

I have admitted to him (with great candour; this was after a few meetings and a lot of chatting) that I’ve never actually had sex with another man and am not sure how it works. He said I was ‘enchantingly unspoiled’ and explained, with diagrams that he drew in my notebook. I was intensely embarrassed, but fortunately that was in character for Theo. Trying to pretend that I knew what I was talking about would have been disastrous.

In short, the reason we couldn’t do it any of the times we tried, and why it always hurt you when we did try, is that you can’t just go directly in. You need a) a lubricant to make everything smooth and slippery and b) to open it up with preliminary massage and finger-probing. It may still hurt at first, but apparently it gets easier as you get used to it and relax. My heart was in my mouth lest Andrew offer to be my teacher for a practical lesson, but there was nothing like that. So now we know.

He did, however, say ‘Theo, I think there’s someone that you love, but you can’t have him. Isn’t that right?’ I said yes, and lied a bit (I felt guilty, particularly since afterwards, there didn’t seem to have been a good reason to lie - it just seemed the thing to do because I was in disguise) so he thinks I’m in love with a fellow student who is what they call straight. (There’s a great deal of slang that I have to learn.) He urges me to forget about him and find someone who can return my feelings - and keeps suggesting suitable young men, so that I have to keep saying that I don’t feel quite ready for that yet.

There is a great deal of lying in this world, though; I suppose there has to be, because people don’t feel safe, but it bothers me that so many of these men are married, even wearing their wedding rings in plain sight in the club. Andrew has never married; he calls himself a confirmed old bachelor. And, making sense of the fact that he hasn’t made any advances to me (I have just reread that and realised how vain it makes me sound), he prefers ‘rough trade,’ meaning burly young working-class men - particularly, in his case, with beefy hairy arms and a stubbly chin and one or two tattoos. I don’t really understand how he can be happy with the arrangements he describes; they just meet briefly, have sex and then part. I asked him if he didn’t want somebody to love and he laughed and called me ‘ineffably sweet.’

I think _you_ are ineffably sweet. 

Your devoted

Tintin

 

(deciphered)

Dear Tintin,

Kindly forward these diagrams at once, because I can’t for the life of me work out what you mean ( _preliminary massage?)_. 

In great haste with exams coming up, having spent too long reading and rereading your letter already,

Chang

P.S. Mr Lee is married with two little daughters. 

 

Dear Chang,

Here. But perhaps you shouldn’t look at them until after your exams are over? I will feel terrible if I bring down your marks.

Love,

Tintin

 

Dearest Tintin,

You haven’t brought down my marks. They were good enough to make my adoptive parents proud of me, and that’s all I ask. Your letter arrived when I had _one exam to go,_ and with a superhuman effort I put it away in a safe place, unread, until that was over. _Then_ I read it, at dead of night, with a torch under my covers.

Please tell Mr Andrew that he’s very good at drawing, and - well, perhaps you hadn’t better tell him what I did after I read the explanation and looked at all the pictures - actually, there’s no point, is there? He doesn’t know I exist. So I’ll just tell _you_ that after that, I was so hard that I brought myself off, then needed to do it again ten minutes later. I pretended it was you both times. And I want you to do to me everything in those pictures, and then if you’re willing, I want to do that to you too.

I’m embarrassed to write this, even in code, but I want you to know: I am hard, and touching myself with my left hand, while I write this. And I touch myself while I read all your letters, because when I read them it’s as if I have you talking to me. 

I want you and love you so much that I ache all over. I want us to join together, to feel you inside of me and for us to be one creature. Would it help if I tried to get ready for you? I could try a bit of ‘preliminary massage’ on myself. One of my skinny fingers wouldn’t feel much like your lovely fat thing but it would be a start.

(illegible)

There, I just came.

All my love,

Chang

 

Dear Mr Chang,

After your highly inflammatory letter Mr Tintin swelled up and burst. In his will he left you his books and his dog. We will be in touch to arrange the transfer of property.

Yours faithfully,

A Solicitor

 

Dear Chang,

I’ve recovered from bursting but only just. Actually, I burst three times in succession, thinking about you touching yourself to my letters. I can’t do that and write at the same time (how clever you are!). Oh, how I want you! My _physical_ memories of you are getting blurry and I want to refresh them, to know again _exactly_ how it feels to have your tongue in my mouth and your hand wrapped around my cock. Excuse me a minute.

I have taken a flat in town again, not a place where I really live but where I can spend the night when convenient. I explain this to the Captain as ‘doing research’ (easier access to museums and libraries) and apart from asking if I want his help, he’s displayed no curiosity about it. Do you want to know what one of the strangest things about this double life as Theo is? No Snowy. I leave him at home. He hates it and when I come back he’s huffy with me and I have to spoil him and rub his ears to get back into his good books. I keep looking for him and starting to talk to him when I’m by myself - which is silly as I’ve decided Theo has never had a dog.

Besides Andrew, I have got to know a lot of the regulars of Le Petit Coin. There are those who just come in order to meet someone to have sex with, but there are also quite a lot who come here because the others are their best friends and it is the one place where they can be themselves without worrying. This is Andrew’s category; he does sometimes pick up his ‘rough trade’ there but more often he meets them at a bath-house where young men who can’t have a bath at their lodgings go. I worry about him sometimes. Last night he had a terrible black eye because the latest young man, after their encounter, was overcome by guilt and seemed to think punching Andrew was the best penance. He laughed it off and said it was all part of the excitement, and everyone bought him drinks.

Other notable regulars: the most regular, of course, are the two men who own the place, Alex and Willem. Alex is one of the ‘fantastic creatures’ I noticed on my first visit. He wears incredible colourful suits and is always in make-up like Valentino in a silent film. He is very handsome but has false teeth; the make-up also serves to hide some scars on his face. He was very badly beaten up once by a group of men who caught him in a clinch with one of their brothers, and lost most of his front teeth. Now ‘in real life’ he says, he keeps himself very much to himself and lives in disguise, but in Le Petit Coin he can be his true self (his true self being best expressed by make-up and fabulous clothes). He works in the theatre, sort of, managing an office that takes care of ticket bookings and advertising. I saw him when I went (as myself, not Theo) to buy tickets to _Carousel_ for the Captain’s birthday treat, and didn’t know him until he smiled and I recognised his teeth. On special occasions Alex puts on a sequined gown and sings on the bandstand, and makes outrageous innuendoes.

Willem is a much quieter specimen. He looks exactly like a middle-aged accountant, because he is one. It’s his way with money that allowed them to buy Le Petit Coin in the first place. He is always grumbling that they’re going broke but I think he’s exaggerating (I hope so as I don’t want to have to find another place for my research). He and Alex have been together since they met in the army twenty-something years ago. Alex’s job is to swan around and make people feel welcome; Willem’s job is to sit at the bar smoking, looking at the books and telling Benny the bartender he’s to stop giving the cute ones freebies.

Benny is an actor in the daytime, or trying to be. He is highly handsome and flirtatious and has never given me a freebie. I try not to be insulted by this. Perhaps he doesn’t like Theo’s little moustache. I wonder if he’d offer you one on the house; there was a Chinese sailor in last week and Benny was in raptures (he was nothing like as lovely as you). I’m torn between wanting to bring you here and introduce you to my new friends and thinking it would be foolish to bring my real world and my disguise-world together.

I don’t get a great many offers or advances, because Andrew is protective of me (he wants to set Theo up with someone, but it must be someone of his choosing, ‘not just any old queer’). He looks daggers at anyone ‘unsuitable’ who tries to flirt with me, which, especially with a black eye, is quite menacing, despite his generally cuddly appearance. I’m keeping true to you, but it’s flattering, sometimes.

And every night I still dream of you.

Your loving

Tintin

 

Dearest Tintin,

I’ve taken a post-office box, so from now on you should write to the return address on this letter. We have a new maid who is incredibly nosy and opens our letters for us ‘to save us the trouble.’ Thank heaven for our code, but coded letters are suspicious in themselves, so I want to be safer.

I was so interested to read about the new people you know now, and I realised that I’ve told you hardly anything about my own daily life. It didn’t seem important, but perhaps you would be interested?

I wake in the morning (sticky - your fault) and have a quick shower before breakfast. I remember how much you liked congee when you were here; that’s usually what I have, with grilled fish for brain food. I walk to school with Gregory from next door. His father is an English civil servant and plays chess with my father. I’m very fond of Gregory, who is short and roly-poly with sandy hair and a crooked nose. The family arrived just three months ago and I have helped him to settle in. He confides in me a great deal and sometimes I wish I could tell him about you in return, but of course I don’t. I have mentioned you as my best friend, that’s all - and he was quite overawed that I knew you.

School goes on with work work work - we are preparing for still more exams (the school likes to give us extra, besides the real Cambridge ones). I am in the kung fu club and play chess and Eton fives (introduced by our headmaster who went to Eton and, Gregory says, has never gotten over it). It’s a kind of handball game. I spend most of my free time taking photos - Gregory and I go exploring and ride the ferries and walk around the markets and I snap away. Last week his father took us with him to the racecourse at Happy Valley and we were allowed to visit the stables and meet some jockeys. I was very glad I’d loaded colour film; I have some wonderful pictures of their racing silks.

At night I often have a bath. We never _did_ have our bath together, but I imagine you’re with me and touch myself the way I want you to do. I can fit two fingers now and it doesn’t hurt any more; I found the place to rub inside and it feels wonderful. I’ve been wondering about putting something else inside, something shaped more like you, but I’m not sure what to use and afraid of hurting myself so I suppose I won’t. The first thing I have in there, besides my fingers, will be _your_ thing and I know I will love it. Does that make you want to burst again? Burst for me, then, and remember I’m bursting for you.

Alsatian l mythology lottery vespers,

Chang

 

Beloved Chang,

I have burst and burst again. You are the sweetest, loveliest, sexiest, dearest, everythingest boy in the world. I want to kiss you and rub you and suck you and come inside you until we are dead of exhaustion and joy. I am horrendously jealous of Gregory - not because I think he loves you or you love him - just because he clearly gets to spend a lot of time with you and have fun with you, and you do know that I miss that horribly as well, don’t you? I enjoy myself with the Captain, I enjoy myself with Andrew, but they are not _you_ , and you _are_ my friend as well as my lovely darling boy.

Excuse me, bursting again. My love!

Now that I am calmer and more sensible, I need to say that things have changed with Andrew, and with Le Petit Coin. They know who I am. I didn’t intend it, but here is how it happened.

Andrew came in one evening staggering, with his clothes torn and his lip split. Another bit of rough gone bad. He was in high spirits and insisted on having a drink with me (he was already quite tipsy). I managed to convince him that we should go back to his flat and have our drink there, once I’d made sure he was all right. (Cries of ‘Go on, Theo!’ from the onlookers. Apparently Willem is running a book on who will take Theo’s now legendary virginity. Someone who clearly hadn’t backed Andrew yelled at me not to do it.)

Andrew was in worse shape than I’d thought, all bruised about his chest and stomach and back. I think he was kicked; they looked more like boot-marks than fist-marks. I covered him in arnica and strapped up his ribs and told him he absolutely must see a doctor in the morning; tell him what he liked, but make sure he was seen to.

‘---- doctors, why don’t you see to me?’ he said, but then apologised and said that he would, on condition that I stay with him and have a drink or two. He poured _very_ strong drinks, and I would have been worried about his intentions except that he was clearly in no fit state to do anything about them; if he had tried to kiss me or touch me I could have poked him in the ribs and walked off while he was bent double. I would hate to hurt Andrew, though, and he has never, ever tried to touch me or kiss me except in friendly ways.

‘Theo Theo Theo, pretty little Theo, I think you must be frigid, so have another drink to warm you up,’ he said, slopping more brandy into my glass and partly over my hand.

‘I’m not frigid, I’m choosy,’ I said, ‘and I choose not to get drunk, thank you.’ But he pressed me and wheedled me until I was quite tipsy too.

‘You must be over him by now, or have you gone and fallen in love with someone else you can’t have?’ he asked me. 

‘Exactly,’ I said, glad of an excuse.

‘You need to forget all about them and just get yourself ----ed,’ he said. Andrew is not normally this foul-mouthed. ‘Or do you want to do the ----ing? Either way, you could have your pick, you stupid boy.’ He sort of lurched at me, trying to ruffle my hair, and his hand was so heavy and clumsy that despite the edge being held down with spirit gum my Theo wig ripped right off. My hair underneath was plastered down with sweat (wearing a wig is quite hot) but it was clear right there how much I’d been hiding. He threw his drink in my face, which made the olive make-up run and the little moustache peel off, and nearly blinded me besides, so I was knocked down when he slapped me.

‘You’re that bloody little journalist bitch!’ he shouted at me, and he was crying. ‘Going to do one of your famous exposés, I suppose? Tintin uncovers homosexual vice den? How can you? D’you even realise how many lives you’ll ruin? D’you give a ----?’ I had a terrible job to get him calmed down and explain that I had never had the least intention of writing a single thing about Le Petit Coin or anyone who visited it. That I had only ever been doing a personal investigation, and that I had disguised myself precisely because nobody would trust me, they would think I _was_ trying to do an exposé. And, of course, I had been afraid of being recognised, being caught, being exposed myself. Tintin _found in_ homosexual vice den.

‘No wonder you’re so ----ing frigid,’ he said, settling down a bit and pouring himself another drink. ‘I don’t understand. You live with a sailor. Aren’t you getting it from him?’

I think I blushed so hard the rest of my body was entirely drained of blood. I see sailors every time I’m in Le Petit Coin, I hear the jokes about them, and it had never, _ever_ occurred to me that as a sailor himself, the Captain might know anything about that world. Even if he weren’t involved in it himself, how could he be unaware? I felt like a thundering idiot. And yet I could never have _asked_ him. I had to have another drink too, to recover, and explained to Andrew that the Captain and I have only ever been the best of friends. Then I told him about you, and how I love you, and you love me, but we can’t be together yet. Oh, Chang, it was the most enormous relief! To tell someone who would understand, and wouldn’t see anything wrong with it! I showed him the picture of you that I keep in my wallet, and he called you exquisite. He sort of gave us his blessing. After that I stumbled off to sleep on his spare bed.

We both had crashing hangovers the next day and lay around weakly sipping tea until we could face a little dry toast. Andrew told me he thought we had to make a clean breast of things to Alex and Willem, at least - that it wasn’t fair to keep deceiving them and their clientèle, because their business relies so much on trust. He phoned them and we went to their house for lunch. For the first time, I saw them when I wasn’t Theo. Alex was hardly Alex, either, wearing old cords and a baggy sweater. They were astonishingly forgiving once they knew I wasn’t going to ruin them. In fact, Alex decided he’s going to make a little play of all this. In his alter ego as Queen Alexandra, he’s going to announce that a SPY has been found in our midst. I’m to be brought on in shackles and Theo is to be pulled off my head and wiped off my face. Then I’m to beg forgiveness and swear allegiance to Le Petit Coin, which will be granted as long as I spend the rest of the evening in stocks, and anyone who likes can take a turn at spanking me with a paddle. Trousers on. I insisted. Andrew has also promised that he’s going to keep a strict eye on me and anyone trying any funny business will get the bum’s rush - this is to be good clean fun, not Sodom and Gomorrah. Also, the stocks won’t really be locked.

From then on, I shall be allowed to visit as normal, with the understanding that I may arrive in a disguise that can be taken off at the door. That’s fairly standard.

Everything is going to be all right, my Chang. Wish me luck.

Your devoted

Tintin

 

DEAR TINTIN PLEASE CONFIRM EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT STOP WORRIED SICK STOP CHANG

 

DEAR CHANG ALL WELL STOP DON’T WORRY WAS SORE BUT UNHARMED STOP TINTIN

 

Dear Tintin,

Don’t frighten me like that. I’m glad it is out in the open and they have all been decent about it but I was so afraid someone would be really angry and take the opportunity to really hurt you. There was an awful thing at school. We are not supposed to know about it but everyone does. Two boys in the Upper Sixth were in love, or at least one was in love and the other was letting him have sex with him. The second one got fed up with the first and threatened to tell on him. The first one has killed himself, and the second one tried to (but got caught and saved) because he’d never really meant it, he was just angry with his friend, and now he’s been taken off to a mental hospital. Everyone tells and retells it like a horror story and says how disgusting it is, and we’re all better off now they’re gone. I absolutely hate it and won’t talk about it - people think that’s because I’m too disgusted by it. Even Gregory thinks that. I’m so scared and so lonely.

I love you,

Chang

 

DEAR CHANG EXPECT ME ON 17.00 FLIGHT TUESDAY STOP TINTIN


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of explanatory notes:  
> a) Can you believe that at one point this was going to be a clean, romantic little story? Sorry.  
> b) I've realised that earlier I included a detail about Tintin's appearance that is really movie-only - the colour of his eyes. They _do_ look different colours in different scenes, and I think it's because they're like water; they look different depending on the light. And let's not forget this water obsession I've developed in this story.  
>  c) I've become irritated with my own poor grasp of continuity/chronology - though I'll admit that this is extremely loose in a series like _Tintin_ , where the characters don't age although the world around them progresses through decades. Hergé played fast and loose with this sometimes - he redid the art for _The Cigars of the Pharaoh_ some years after it was first published, and in the scene where a sheik reveals that he knows who Tintin is because he's read his adventures, changed the cover of the book the sheik's servant displays to _Destination Moon_ , which hadn't been written when _Cigars_ was published.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> I've realised that I don't really know where Chang goes and when, canonically, after the events of _Tintin in Tibet_. In _The Castafiore Emerald_ , the next book, Tintin receives a letter from him 'in London.' I'd forgotten that detail and frankly, forgot that Chang was supposed to be visiting relatives in England, whether before or after his planned visit to Marlinspike (SHOW ME YOUR ITINERARY CHANG). So this really doesn't work with what I've been doing with their correspondence, and I just have to ask you to humour this as an AU. But feel free to imagine that the events of the books subsequent to _Tibet_ still happen and just aren't getting mentioned in my story because I am far too lazy to interweave them convincingly, especially when I just want to write about sweet affectionate unrealistically awesome first-time sex.
> 
> d) Apologies to the Peninsula Hotel of Tsim Sha Tsui, which is a real, classy place.  
> e) I had an e) but I've forgotten what it was going to be.  
> f) I know I said in c) that the characters don't visibly age, but I'd amend that to say that in early books, Tintin looks about fifteen to me, while in later ones I'd place him nearer seventeen. It's also interesting to note that in his first couple of appearances, particularly in _The Crab with the Golden Claws_ , Captain Haddock appears considerably fatter around the waist than in later years. I like to think this isn't so much Hergé redesigning the character as Haddock getting a bit fitter, with less heavy drinking and more running around punching people.  
> g) OH YEAH e) was going to be that, while until now I've alternated their POVs in different chapters, this one includes both their POVs in alternating _chunks_. Sorry if that's jarring.

Chang was there at the gate with his father, and he had to sniff hard and wink back tears. They met with a hug, and Tintin could feel him trembling. The need to kiss him was so strong that he thought he might be trembling too. He patted Chang briskly on the back and stepped back, turning to smile and shake hands with Wang Chen-yee.

‘You honour us once again with your company,’ the old man said, beaming. ‘A room in our house is ready for you. Chang has been able to talk of nothing else since your wire arrived.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Wang, but I can’t put you to so much trouble. The conference I’ve come to attend will go on until late in the evening, and I don’t want to disrupt your family’s sleep coming home at all hours.’

‘It would be no trouble at all. We would all be so happy to have you with us. Please, reconsider.’

 _You are so kind, but I just can’t bugger your son under your roof. How does that sound?_ ‘I’m sorry, I simply couldn’t. I’ve booked a hotel room, and I’ve paid in advance. You understand.’ He felt rude and ungrateful, and he thought Mr Wang looked hurt, though he covered it well with a smile. 

‘Then at least have dinner with us tonight. Your conference does not start until tomorrow, I think? My wife and my elder son will be delighted to see you once again. You must meet my daughter-in-law, my grandchildren. They have all heard so much about you, and what you have done for our family.’

There was no way to say no to that - and it was good to see Mrs Wang and Didi again, particularly since Didi showed no further inclination to cut anybody’s head off, and was now a shyly proud husband and father. Tintin was presented with a chubby baby girl who laughed and patted his face with little pink starfish hands, and sat in his lap all evening, except when her toddler brother supplanted her. The only time he could be alone with Chang was for five minutes before dinner was served, when he took him to see his room and some photographs. The photographs went unseen as they kissed desperately, up against the closed door.

‘The Peninsula Hotel, room 517,’ Tintin told him between kisses. ‘Can you play truant for one day?’

‘I can try. I love you. Oh, I love you! You came for me.’

‘We must stop. Your face is all red.’

‘So’s yours. But for a wonder you’re not crying.’

He spent an extremely restless night at the Peninsula, despite the excellent bed and comfortable room. It was true that there was a travel journalists’ conference being held here in Tsim Sha Tsui, and he had thanked his lucky stars that he had found such a perfect pretext for his visit, and he would probably show his face when Chang could not get away to be with him. 

By coming here to solve one problem he had created others; the Captain had seemed confused and hurt that he wanted to go to the conference alone, despite the fact that he himself did no writing and professed to dislike all travel except sailing, and Snowy was so furious with him he had piddled in his suitcase and he had had to repack. The Professor, thank heaven, had seemed oblivious to the whole thing, as he was deep in the bowels of some new invention. Andrew, on the other hand, when he’d phoned him from the airport to say goodbye and apologise in advance for not meeting him that weekend as they’d planned, had laughed his head off, told him to go and roger his China boy senseless, and promised that Le Petit Coin would drink a toast to their love that very night.

He was awake long before the sun rose, and tried to calm himself by following his sensible morning routine, calisthenics, a bath, a superb room-service breakfast that he could hardly touch. He got dressed and fiercely resisted the impulse to change his clothes; what he was wearing could hardly make any difference to how Chang felt now. He tried and failed to read for what felt like endless hours, until the front desk rang to say a guest was coming up to see him. Then the sweat sprang out in earnest on his back and under his arms, and he wondered if he could quickly change his shirt before Chang got up to the fifth floor, but there was the knock at the door, and there was Chang, carrying a school case bulging slightly due to being stuffed with his blazer and tie, and the door closed and they were locked together.

Chang fell back against the door, fumbling with Tintin’s belt, moaning urgently into his mouth, his erection prodding at his hip. He slid his hand down and gripped it through the blue serge of his uniform trousers, felt Chang’s hips buck, once, twice, then the serge grew wet and the moan became a sigh. He kissed the sweet soft mouth again and rubbed himself against Chang’s belly until he shook and came. As his vision cleared he felt ashamed; that had been almost violent.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course... how can I ever not be all right when I have you?’ Chang touched his face lightly, tracing the curve of his cheek. ‘You don’t know how good it feels, how _safe_ it feels to have you back.’

‘I can only stay for the week, but I didn’t want you to be alone feeling like that. Oh, don’t cry.’

‘It’s just relief. Oh, my Tintin...’ Chang pressed their foreheads together, stroking his hair. Another kiss, flavoured with salt. When their legs were a little steadier, Tintin led him over to the armchair by the window and they sat curled up together, Chang warm in his lap.

‘Did you get away all right?’

‘Yes... I asked Gregory to say I’d got sick on the way to school and went home. I didn’t even need to make up a reason for him, just said I’d got something to do that couldn’t wait. He’s such a good friend, he just said “You can owe me one”.’

‘The school won’t phone your parents, will they?’

‘No, only if I’m not there tomorrow either. So I’ll have to be. I don’t want to be. I want to stay with you.’

‘Well, perhaps we could work our way around that. I could ask your father to excuse you for the day so I could bring you to the conference to meet the photojournalists.’

‘I don’t know if he’d say it’s all right to miss a day of school, but it’s worth trying. Will you come to dinner tonight, too, so we can ask together?’ He pressed a kiss to Tintin’s forehead.

‘Of course. But for today I have you all to myself, don’t I?’

‘Of course. Tintin, why are you all sweaty?’

‘I got into a state waiting for you to come.’

‘We could have our bath together at long last.’ A soft little whisper against his cheek, making him shiver.

‘What a perfect idea.’ He closed his eyes as Chang’s lips touched his cheek, his ear, his neck, and his fingers softly unbuttoned his shirt. 

 

Tintin’s skin tasted of salt, very slightly of onions, very faintly of soap, and he was the beautiful creamy-rosy colour Chang remembered best in his dreams. He undid the buttons and slipped his hands inside his shirt, stroking over his smooth, firm chest, sliding under his arms and down his sides. There was the scar; he ran his fingers along its groove and back, and felt Tintin shiver lightly.

‘Come on.’ He got to his feet and held out his hand, and they went into the bathroom hand in hand. While the water ran they undressed each other.

‘I think you’ve grown. Not much taller, but you might have started to fill out a little bit.’ Tintin had only bothered to undo the first two buttons on Chang’s shirt; he drew it off over his head.

‘I’m probably never going to fill out much. My father was always skinny.’ Chang tried to flatten down his hair, pulled out of shape by the shirt collar.

‘I like you exactly as you are. You’re my little bird.’ And Tintin was kissing him, holding him, their bare chests and stomachs pressed tightly together. His heart was pounding, his stomach fluttered, his lips felt hot and tingly as if he’d eaten something far too spicy, and his groin was filling with sweet warmth. Tintin undid his belt, his button, his zipper, let his trousers fall around his ankles where he kicked them away, treading out of his shoes and socks toe-to-heel. Then his thumbs were in the waistband of his underpants, pulling them down, peeling them away where the cotton was stuck to his skin. They slid down around his knees as he pushed himself into Tintin’s warm hand, both arms around his shoulders, kissing him deeply, sucking at his tongue until he drew back.

‘All right, that’s enough.’

‘What?’

‘No, no, enough water, that’s all. Not enough _you,_ never enough you.’ Tintin let him go, leaned over and turned off the taps. ‘I just don’t want to flood the bathroom.’

‘Here.’ Chang reached for his waistband, unbuttoning him, pulling down his plus-fours, helping him when they tangled around his ankles. Once they were both naked all he wanted was to press as close to him as he could, breathing faster and harder as they kissed and their erections rubbed together.

‘Do you want to get into the bath at any time?’ Tintin asked him, smiling.

‘Oh, I suppose so.’

‘Come on, then.’ In the warm water they slid together until they found a comfortable way to lie, Chang nestled between Tintin’s legs and leaning back on his chest.

‘This is lovely. Like the time in the river, but better. It’s so warm.’

‘You, um, you touch yourself in the bath, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I think I told you.’

‘The way you’d like me to touch you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Show me how, then.’

‘Give me your hand. You know how.’ He guided Tintin to rub him with firm, quick strokes, panting softly.

‘I love your cock.’

‘Good. I love yours. Oh...’ He was nearly there, but Tintin’s hand slowed and the sweetness dropped away to build up higher next time. ‘Mmm...’ He stretched against him, rubbing his hair against Tintin’s cheek. ‘More, please.’

‘Tell me about the other thing you do in the bath.’ A kiss on top of his head.

‘Oh.’ His stomach fluttered again, nervously. ‘I don’t do that _in_ the bath... I do it afterwards, and I don’t think I can do it here, because remember your friend said you need something for lubricant, I got Vaseline because he said that worked, but I didn’t bring it with me...’

‘That’s all right. I brought something with me. I hoped we would... but you know, we don’t have to, not unless you’re ready.’

‘I want to try. At least your fingers. I’ve been thinking about it so long it doesn’t seem real.’

‘This is real. Just enjoy this now.’ And his hand moved faster, and it was perfect.

 

They lay in the bath until the water was getting cold and their fingertips were shrivelled, then reluctantly got out and wrapped each other in towels. Once they were approximately dry, they went to bed and lay curled together, talking, about everything they had put in their letters and everything they hadn’t.

‘One day I’ll take you to Le Petit Coin and then they’ll see why I didn’t want to go with anyone else,’ Tintin said, lying with his head in Chang’s lap, idly drawing spirals on his stomach with his forefinger.

‘But they’ll be cross because none of them have bet on me.’

‘That means Willem gets to keep all their bets, so he’ll be happy anyway. I love your stomach.’

‘I thought you loved my thing.’

‘I love each bit of you equally.’

‘No. I think you love that especially.’

‘It is special.’ He turned his head and gave it a quick kiss, enjoying Chang’s little gasp, then smiled up at him. ‘It’s lovely. I like to have it in my hand even better than my own.’

‘You haven’t told Andrew things like that, have you?’

‘No. They’re just for you and me.’ Chang reached down to touch his hair, stroking lightly, and he closed his eyes contentedly.

‘Well, I love your hair. Do you think it’s red or blond? I’m never sure.’

‘That’s called strawberry blond.’

‘We found wild strawberries growing, remember? When we were out for a walk? And they were so tiny and sweet.’

‘Sweet like you.’

‘And red like you.’

‘I’m not that red.’

‘A certain something goes very red when you’re excited.’

‘It does, it does. But so does yours.’

Chang was blushing and smiling at the same time, and the combination was irresistible; he lifted himself on one arm to be level with his face and kissed him. They stretched out together, Chang under him, stroking his hair, his ears, slow, soft kisses, the furthest thing in the world from the mad rush when he’d first arrived. He brushed the thick, dark hair back and pressed his lips to Chang’s forehead.

‘I want to make quite sure you know. If ever, ever you’re in trouble, I’ll come and help you, always.’

‘I know.’

‘And what happened to those boys is terrible, but nothing like that will ever, ever happen to us.’

‘If my parents ever knew...’ Chang looked away. ‘I hate having to keep such a secret from them. I feel guilty whenever I think of it. But if they knew, the awful thing is, I don’t think they’d be angry or throw me out of the house or anything like that. They’d be so _worried_ about me. They’d probably put me straight into a hospital. And they’d be so shamed, lose so much face, to have two sons who went mad - but it wasn’t Didi’s fault, he was poisoned. I don’t have a good reason like that. And I’m only an adopted son. They took a chance on me, because they’re so kind, and look how I’ve turned out.’

‘Yes, look how you’ve turned out. Brave and kind and gentle. Someone who can find good points in the Abominable Snowman.’ Chang managed a wan smile, although tears were leaking from his eyes. Tintin did his best to kiss them away. ‘And Dr Kinsey would say you’re not mad. There’s a lot of it about. I’ve been reading up.’

‘Well, do you think Dr Kinsey could write me a note?’ Chang laughed weakly. ‘Excusing me.’

‘I’ll go and find him and ask. Now _that_ would be an interview people wouldn’t expect from me. I do politics and crime and travel, not sex and psychology.’

‘I think you do sex quite well.’

‘Thank you.’ Kissing again, lowering his weight onto Chang’s body, slim arms and legs wrapped around him, chest to chest and belly to belly, perspiration blooming between them and gluing their skins together. And that lovely twitch of Chang’s cock beginning to stiffen, his own growing hot and thick, pressing together in the smothering heat between them. The tears were still wet on his face, sliding into their mouths and flavouring each kiss with salt.

‘A rainbow in my heart again,’ Chang murmured. ‘The sun shines because I love you, and you love me... but it’s always going to be raining on us.’

‘I know. I know, but if you’ll let me, I’ll try to be your umbrella as well as your blanket.’

‘I - I want you to really do - I want us to have sex, properly, I want the whole thing, I want to really belong to you.’

‘You belong to me no matter what, just like I belong to you.’

‘I _want_ to.’ A fierce, sucking kiss, bony hips squirming against him. ‘Want _you.’_

‘And I want you so much... I’m just so nervous. Don’t want to hurt you.’

‘I know you won’t. I mean - I’ve practised, anyway. I’m up to three fingers.’

‘Crumbs.’

‘Bunched together, not side by side.’

‘That’s still - gosh. It doesn’t hurt?’ The idea was making his mind go blank except for beautiful, dirty pictures; it was hard to speak.

‘Not any more. And even when it did, it felt nice at the same time. So don’t _worry.’_ Chang looked up at him, sweet and serious and flushed. ‘You always worry, and I want you to stop.’

‘I can’t. I think it’s part and parcel of how I love you.’

‘All right then. Worry, but do it anyway.’ The flush in his cheeks grew deeper, and he pulled Tintin down to rest their foreheads together. ‘Do you want me to - to talk to you about it, like you liked me writing about it? I want you to put it inside me, I want to feel your big hard thing pushing up inside my bum... like that?’

‘If you talk like _that_ I’ll come before I can get it anywhere near your bum.’

‘Come on, then.’

‘Wait a minute. I need to get the Vaseline and the tissues. I’m not hurting you, and I’m not leaving a big mess.’

‘All right, but be _quick.’_

Of course, since Chang had said that, he was clumsy and fumbled with the zip of his spongebag, and dropped the jar when he had got it out, and felt off balance trying to walk with his cock jutting out in front of him, feeling as if his heart was beating inside it. When he crawled back onto the bed, Chang made matters worse by taking hold of it to pull him closer and kiss him. 

‘Such a lovely big thing,’ he whispered. 

‘It’s not - oh - it’s not _that_ big, it’s just - oh Chang, don’t rub it now, I really can’t hold on if you do.’ He rolled away and tried to catch his breath, his cock burning, falling back and tapping against his stomach. ‘Um. Anyway. Anyway, it’s, it’s... I measured it and it’s just under six inches. Near enough to call it six. Which is nice but not _big_ big. Yours is... five? Five and a half? And I don’t think you’ve finished growing. And some men have... have seven or eight or, or Andrew lent me a magazine, one man was _ten_ inches, they had a ruler next to it to show you.’

‘It still looks big to me. I can’t even imagine what a ten-inch one would look like.’

‘Well, I can’t show you, because I didn’t dare put the magazine in my bag in case Customs asked to open it.’

‘I can’t believe they made a _magazine_ of that.’

‘Well, not an official one. Not one you could buy in a shop. But there are sort of secret publishers, people doing it as a hobby really, and they circulate through a few dealers, and then people swap and share...’

‘Tintin, really, are you calm enough now? Because I can’t wait much longer. I’ll have to stick my fingers in myself.’ Chang was pouting.

‘I think you should. First. To show me what you like.’

‘All right, then, I will!’

‘Good, do that,’ Tintin said, with a silly grin.

‘So there,’ Chang muttered, taking the lid off the jar and dipping his fingers in. He shuffled onto his knees and bent forward, his chest on the bed as he reached back, pulling his buttocks apart with one hand. ‘I hope you’re watching carefully.’

‘I am. Hold still and let me have a good look. It’s so _pretty_. It’s like a little brown star with a pink heart. Do you want me to hold your cheeks for you?’’

‘Yes, please.’ Chang pushed himself up on one elbow, his other hand passing up between his legs. Shiny, slick fingertips rubbing over it. ‘I need to rub it a little bit first. I - ooh - I feel different with you watching me. Touching me.’

‘Better or worse?’

‘Much better. Here, look, I’ll show you how they go in. See? It’s - oh - it’s easy, it just - just opens up now, I _trained_ it, I wanted to get all ready for you.’

‘Now it’s like a little mouth that sucks and swallows. Chang, it’s _beautiful.’_

‘Oh please... please, put it in, I promise I’ll suck, I’ll squeeze... don’t look at my _face,_ look _there.’_

‘But your face is so lovely too. You should see it. I should bring a mirror.’

‘Don’t you dare move off this bed. I _need_ you.’

‘Let me try fingers.’ He took Chang’s wrist and gently tugged his fingers out, greased his own first two and hesitantly pressed them in. They slid in like butter, then he felt a tight ring of muscle cramp around them and Chang grunted. ‘All right?’

 _‘Yes._ Deeper.’ Those _squeezes_ kept coming as he pushed into the slick warmth, and thinking about how they would feel along the length of his cock made him dizzy. He thought some of them were on purpose, but others were flutters, flickers that felt involuntary. Chang was moaning, clutching a handful of tissues and the sheets with his clean hand. 

‘Still nice?’

‘Yes!’

An unforeseen advantage of doing this was that he was so _fascinated_ by it that he could almost ignore his cock for a little bit. He’d only put one finger in his own bottom, and not that often; he could see and feel Chang’s at the same time, and really pay attention to the way it stretched inside, so smooth and soft. He straightened out his fingers, angled them and moved them round and round, and Chang cried out and pushed back on his hand.

‘Three fingers, please, I told you three...’

‘All right, all right...’ That felt clumsier, his ring finger tucked in against the index and middle ones; he had to move from the wrist, not the knuckles.

‘Push in and down, in and down - there! There! Aah!’

‘It’s a little bump... I could never find mine...’

‘Rub it rub it rub it!’ Tintin felt vaguely, thrillingly shocked at the way Chang was commanding him, and shoving his hips back, his thighs shaking so that one knee almost slipped out from under him and he had to take his free hand from his bottom to hold his leg and steady him. ‘Oh please, please, please do it now, put it in me, put it in me...’

‘All right. Hold on.’ He had to wipe his fingers, lubricate his cock, everything was taking so _long_ and Chang was whimpering for him. _This lovely, lovely boy wants me so much!_

 _Go slowly. Be careful. It’s longer than your fingers, it will feel different because it’s round, not a wedge..._ He felt agonisingly clumsy as he lined it up and leaned in. And oh, oh, it was slipping in, the little mouth opening up so sweetly, the head was in, _sliding,_ the whimpering had turned into high-pitched panting, it was so _hot_ in there, hotter than it had felt to his fingers, his vision was going dark and his head was swimming. He had to give himself a moment to recover, bent double over Chang’s back, halfway into him, shuddering all over with pleasure.

‘Oh, I love you...’ His tongue felt as thick and clumsy as if he were drunk. He planted a wet kiss between Chang’s shoulderblades and wrapped one arm tight around his belly.

‘Just... just hold still a little bit more... you’re so big...’

‘You were the one begging me...’

‘But it’s so _big...’_

‘I’ll take it out if it’s too much.’

‘Don’t you _dare.’_

‘What would you do?’

‘Die!’

‘I don’t want to take it out. But I want to turn you round. Will you try not to die if I promise to put it right back in?’

‘All right... but quick...’ Chang went limp in his arms as he turned him onto his back, spread his legs, lifted his hips, shuffling his knees in under them, and sank in again, a little deeper than before. Chang made blissful sounds and arched his back, his face rosy and his chest heaving, his cock straining against his belly. His eyes were closed and his mouth a little open, lips red and wet as his tongue flicked over them. Tintin had never seen him look quite like this, so completely and totally given over to desire, and he was so beautiful it made his heart ache. _I’m doing that to him._ It didn’t seem real. Still, he was panting too, and his face felt fiery. He edged forward, biting his lip, deeper and hotter and so, so tight and soft.

‘That’s... that’s all... all the way in... oh Chang...’ He was holding Chang’s thighs tight enough to leave white prints on the skin when he shifted his hands. The white handmarks turned rosy pink, nearly as rosy as his cock, gently weeping onto his belly.

‘Push,’ Chang breathed. ‘I want... I want...’

‘Yes...’ He pushed, drew back, in, back, the twitching and squeezing sliding up and down the length of his cock, the tender head kissed all over by soft slick warmth, telling himself _two more strokes, now two more, you can do two more, Chang needs two more, give him two more... rub his darling cock, two more, he’s getting close, two more,_ I’m _getting close, two more,_ yes, _two more!_ They came together, gasping, Chang shooting a streak of milky white up over his chest to his neck, and collapsed in a heavy, sweating tangle. He might have slept for a little while like that, with his cheek on Chang’s shoulder; either way he was limp and sweetly exhausted, too much to even open his eyes. He felt Chang breathing under him, deep gusty breaths gradually slowing, growing gentle, just a steady tide that pressed up and eased down.

Eventually he lifted himself, peeling away from Chang, and did his best to clean them both up with tissues. There was nothing on the sheets to worry chambermaids, so that was good.

‘Where are you going?’ Chang murmured drowsily as he edged off the bed.

‘Just to the bathroom.’

‘Oh... come back soon.’

Waking in the afternoon, it seemed a waste to have spent so much of their day together curled up asleep, but it had been the best rest he’d had in months. Chang stretched gently against him and turned over to kiss him, his mouth soft with sleep and rusty-tasting.

‘I’m so thirsty,’ he murmured, ‘and I need a wee, but I don’t want to _move.’_

‘You should have gone when I went.’

‘I _couldn’t_ move then.’

‘You’d call it a success, then.’ He smiled, eyes closed, as Chang dissolved into laughter against his chest.

They ate the cold, almost untouched breakfast, and had another long bath together, drowsing in the warm water, and made love again on the floor, Tintin on his back on the bathmat and Chang sitting astride him, moaning sweetly as he pushed himself up and ground down. It was too chilly to lie on the floor for long after that, and after washing they reluctantly agreed that it was about time to get dressed. After two false starts, they managed to make themselves outwardly respectable again.

‘I can’t sit still,’ Chang complained. ‘I’m too sore. I know it’s my own fault, but _ow.’_ He was sitting on the end of the bed, putting on his school tie, trying to make sure he would look the same when he got home as when he’d set out.

‘Well, next time we’ll change places, and you can recover and I’ll be sore for a while,’ Tintin suggested, straightening up from tying his shoes and dotting a quick kiss on Chang’s cheek. 

‘Are you sure?’ Chang looked surprised.

‘Of course. You can’t make that sort of fuss about how good it feels and not expect me to want to try.’

‘Don’t let’s talk about it now. We can’t get started again.’

‘I wish I could think of a good reason to have you to stay with me all night.’

‘Come and stay with _me_ all night. Father would be happy, and I could sneak into your room once everyone’s asleep. Like before.’

‘Too risky. It’s different at Marlinspike, but your room’s only across the hall from your parents’.’

‘Then you’ll have to think of _wonderful_ reasons for him to excuse me from school tomorrow.’

‘It’ll be better if we have to wait for it.’

‘I know, but don’t you want it all the time? I do. It’s terrible, it’s as if you’ve turned a switch on inside me and it’s stuck like that.’

‘I know,’ Tintin admitted. ‘I keep thinking I should be worn out and then you give me a _look_ and it pings back up. Like _that!_ That look! You’re not to do that.’

‘I didn’t hear a ping,’ Chang protested, laughing.

‘And then when you smile it gets worse. Stop it. Stop it! Right.’ He pushed him back on the bed and rolled on top of him, kissing him through his protests and giggles, unbuckling his belt and sliding his hand into his trousers.

‘You’ve ruined it - we were nearly dressed again!’

‘You ruined it. You gave me your special look.’ Gentle rubbing and more kisses, loving the way Chang pushed into his hand and sighed.

‘I don’t even know what this magic look is supposed to look like! I think you’re imagining it.’

‘It’s this look now. The one that says oh, I love you, I want you to love me inside and out.’

‘This look now?’

‘No, I don’t know what _that_ means.’

‘You’re being such an ass.’

‘Because I’m too happy. It’s this or dance and sing. Come on, we’ll dance anyway.’ 

‘What? No!’ But he was pulling Chang to his feet and whisking him around the room in the worst approximation of a waltz an elegant hotel like this had ever seen.


	8. Chapter 8

He arrived back in Europe feeling tired and bewildered, as if he had been dreaming for a week, the fuggy warmth of Hong Kong as illusory as being so close to Chang. They had had two whole, perfect, love-soaked days together, and then Chang had had to go back to school and he had had to put up a convincing pretence of actually being there for a conference. They had still seen each other in the afternoons and evenings as much as possible, but that had felt feverish and artificial somehow. 

They’d wanted so much to be alone together, but agreed that it wasn’t a good idea for the hotel staff to see Tintin taking a boy up to his room day after day, so for the rest of the week they had had to control themselves, with the exception of one glorious evening when Chang’s parents went to dinner with friends and Chang had boldly given the housemaid the night off and phoned Tintin to come around _right now_. Glorious, but only three hours before the Wangs came home, and then they’d had to act normal again. 

He couldn’t believe how awkward it was to live with one’s parents and have a school routine; it was so far from how he lived, and felt so bizarre considering the kind of affair he and Chang were carrying on. Sometimes he still felt ashamed of what they did and how much he loved it, or just plain baffled at how passionate he’d become - not to mention the contrast between Chang in public, or with his parents, neat and polite and humble, and Chang in private with him, kissing him frantically and wrestling him for the prize of choosing which of them would be on top first. _Have I corrupted him, or was all that in his nature anyway?_

With all these thoughts rolling around in his head, he had to try to act normal, and grateful for Captain Haddock driving out to the airport to meet him.

‘No Snowy?’ he asked as they walked out to the car. The Captain seemed to be in one of his country-squire phases again, wearing a tweed suit and a check waistcoat. At least he had never gone back to monocles, although there were still several boxes in a cupboard somewhere, from the days when he’d bought them in bulk. Nestor seemed to believe there might be a use for them one day.

‘You’re still in the doghouse with Snowy,’ Haddock replied, unlocking the door. ‘I told him you were coming back today and he turned up his nose. You’ve some work to do there.’

‘I’ll make it up to him. How have you and the Professor been?’ he asked, buckling his seatbelt.

‘Oh, Cuthbert’s all right. He’s got some sort of government contract; won’t tell me what it is, but he’s burnt off his eyebrows and yesterday morning he tapped out “MI5” in morse code on his saucer with the teaspoon.’

‘And you?’

‘Can’t complain.’

‘We should go somewhere, now I’m back,’ Tintin said, feeling guilty. He’d neglected the Captain just as badly as Snowy, off on his secret missions to the demi-monde and then dashing off to Hong Kong. ‘We haven’t been to the pictures for a while. Shall I see what’s playing?’

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,’ Haddock said, staring ahead at the road. 

‘Oh?’ His stomach grew cold. _It can’t be about that._

‘It’s about you and Chang.’

 _It is about that. Oh no, oh snakes, it’s all up. No, keep calm, what can he say? What can he do? And he’s my_ friend. _Isn’t he?_ ‘Yes?’

‘Is he all right?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘You took off to see him in such a hurry, I wondered if you’d had another of your telepathy things.’

‘Oh, no.’ _Tele_ gram _, not telepathy._

‘I know he’s very... important to you.’

‘Of course. He’s my friend.’

‘Right. Hang on, this fool’s trying to overtake. What are you doing, Ben-Hur? You’ll not get there any sooner! Lunatic! Mooncalf! Troglodyte! Did you see him?’

‘Yes, Captain.’ _Please let him get sidetracked onto other people’s driving._

‘Mad! They’ll give anyone a licence these days. They drive like _you_ in a tank.’

‘Have you ever actually tried to drive a tank? It’s not easy.’

‘Huh,’ said the Captain, taking a corner much too fast. ‘Hazards to shipping, all of them. Anyway, what was I saying? About your Chang.’

‘He’s perfectly all right, Captain.’

‘Then why did you race off at a moment’s notice?’

‘For the travel writers’ conference, of course.’

‘Bilge. If you’d planned to go to that you’d have been booked months in advance. In any case, you’re _not_ a travel writer, unless you’ve kept that very dark. Something was wrong. Why don’t you want to tell me about it?’

‘If you must know, it was a personal problem of Chang’s that he asked for my help with, as a friend, in confidence.’

‘That needed you to fly to Hong Kong?’

‘That is where he lives.’

‘Now look, Tintin, we don’t pry into each other’s lives, but I don’t try to make a fool of you.’ Another corner cut, and Tintin reflexively pressed his feet down as if he had a brake pedal.

‘I’m not trying to make a fool of you. I’d never do that,’ he protested.

‘Then why are you messing me about like this? Any nitwit can see you’re infatuated with the bli- blessed boy.’ Haddock glared at him briefly before turning the glare back on the road ahead.

His heart started hammering, and he swallowed hard. ‘I’m not infatuated,’ he said weakly.

‘Well, the way you carry on - blistering barnacles! Road hog! Swine! Dibbuk!’

‘He’s got the right of way, Captain - slow down!’

‘All right, all right, hang on.’

‘For heaven’s sake, don’t run us off the road.’

‘Then don’t run off to foreign parts without a word of warning except a load of tommyrot about a conference.’

‘I haven’t lied to you, Captain, I really was at the conference.’

‘You might well have been. I still think you’re infatuated with him.’

‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

‘You can’t go dropping everything for some whippersnapper who’s got you on a string.’

‘What - what are you _talking_ about?’ He was utterly confused. Where was the tone of disapproval, of revulsion? The Captain was talking about it as if it were any case of unrequited love. 

‘Well, I hope I’m a broad-minded man. I dare say my mind’s so broad I could pull it out of my ears and tie it under my chin. I don’t care if you’re in love with him - it’s about time you were in love with _someone._ I was starting to think you were a perfect cold fish.’ Another glare, goodness knew what for.

‘Yes, but - but...’ He sputtered to a halt, then tried a new tack. ‘All right, we’re in love, I admit it, but... but we couldn’t know... couldn’t just _tell_ you... it’s private! You’re not my _father.’_ Well, _that_ was childish.

‘Good! I don’t want to be! If you were my son I’d have white hair by now. Anyway, if you think you’re in love, the pair of you, what d’you propose to do about it?’

‘We’re waiting for him to finish school,’ Tintin admitted lamely. ‘Then he’s coming here for university, and we can be together.’

‘Ever planning to tell his parents?’

‘We can’t. They’re so traditional. They’ll want him to get married, and...’

‘They’re still going to want that even if he lives here, so you two had better come up with some sort of excuse for putting them off. You can’t have “married to the sea,” that’s my one. Try “just haven’t met the right girl yet”.’

‘Wait - _what?’_

‘Hang on, I’m going to get my own back. I’m going to overtake _him._ There he is in his poxy little Citroën. He’s wearing a flat cap! You can’t trust a driver in a flat cap. They cause all the accidents.’

‘For pity’s sake, Captain, leave him alone. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?’

‘Depends what you think I’m saying.’

‘I...’ He had to stop and try to turn the idea around until it would fit inside his head. ‘Captain, if you’ve ever thought of me as...’ He didn’t know how to put it into words without sounding vain or heartless. 

‘What in blazes are you talking about? You’re far too young for me. I don’t rob the cradle.’

‘Oh. Er. Good.’

‘Don’t think I don’t hear the things people say about us. The jokes. But you’ve always been safe with me. Don’t worry about it.’

‘People make jokes about us?’ His voice came out as a thin squeak.

‘I said don’t worry about it.’

‘I do worry, though! I don’t want people _guessing,_ even if they guess the wrong person.’ _Perhaps I should move out. Oh, snakes, I didn’t realise it was this bad._

‘Look, sooner or later you just have to decide whether or not you care what other people think. Be discreet, of course, protect yourself, protect the other fellow, but if you don’t _care_ then they can’t really _get_ you. D’you see what I mean? Because once you care too much to do anything you really want to, they’ve got you, even if they never find you out.’ The Captain’s face was turning red, and Tintin realised how difficult it was for him to speak about this directly, what an effort he was making to try to help him. His own face was burning with embarrassment.

‘Have... have you ever had someone you loved?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Course I have. You met him. Remember Chester?’

‘Really? I thought he was just your friend.’

‘Well, he is now. Twenty years we were together, I told you that too. Then I got promotion, my own ship, the _Karaboudjan,_ and we realised we had to call it a day. Wasn’t easy, but if you can’t stay together and you don’t know when you’ll ever see each other, there’s no sense in trying to hold on. Just how it is at sea.’

‘Is... is that why you started drinking so much?’

‘Oh, no, I was always a drinker. Just... Chester kept me in check. Told me when I’d had enough. I never knew on my own. Made the mistake of relying on Allan after that, and he was the last man I should’ve trusted.’

‘Were the two of _you -’_

 _‘No!_ Blistering barnacles, what d’you think I am?’

‘I’m sorry! It’s difficult to keep up. Don’t you want to see Chester again? Perhaps you could pick up where you left off?’

‘No. That’s over. It’s all right. Think of it as an amicable divorce. Always happy to see him again, but it’s over.’

‘That seems awfully sad.’

‘Look, I’ve _said_ it’s all right. Will you take my word for it or not? You’re so blasted young you think everything’s true love forever and if you can’t have that one person you’ll die, don’t you?’

‘Of course not!’ _I wouldn’t_ die. _But I couldn’t ever love anyone else. I’m sure someone else could but I don’t have it in me. This is the one time I’m going to love someone so I have to keep it safe._ That was too personal to say. ‘It just seems a shame for you to be lonely.’

‘Why, I’m not lonely. I’ve got you, Cuthbert, Snowy, that wretched cat.’ They were getting close to home now, driving through the village. ‘Look... we probably won’t talk about this again. I don’t want to and I can see you don’t either. That’s all right too. Any last things you want to ask about?’

‘Er - does the Professor know about you?’

‘No, and there’s no need.’

‘Nestor?’

‘If he’s worked it out on his own he’s never said anything. He’s not the sort to gossip, in any case.’

‘Will you mind if Chang comes to stay again?’

‘Not in the least. Delightful young chap. Glad to hear he isn’t stringing you along.’

‘What if... what if he came to live with us, eventually?’

‘We’ve room. Still, wouldn’t you be happier in a place of your own? You could have a bit of privacy.’

‘I know, but I... I love Marlinspike.’ _I love you, too, and I wouldn’t feel right leaving you alone, especially after all this._

‘Just as well I’m leaving it to you, then.’

‘Seriously?’ That astonished him; he had never thought of any such thing.

‘What else would I do with it? I suppose there’s always the National Trust, they’d take care of it, but someone may as well live in it. You can leave it to them, unless you find someone else you’d like to pass it onto.’

‘I suppose I’d thought it might go back to Professor Calculus, since he bought it for you...’

‘It’s in my name, and he’s even older than I am. Though you should also know he’s leaving you his patents.’

‘What!’

‘Or if anything happens to you, I think they go into some sort of trust to give science scholarships.’

‘That’s far more worthwhile.’

‘You could always give out scholarships yourself, then. But d’you fancy trying to talk him out of it?’

‘Not awfully.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t let’s talk about this any more. Thinking about life without the two of you around is upsetting.’

‘Believe me, I’m in no hurry.’

‘Just as well.’

 

It all went into a long letter to Chang. After some discussion, they’d decided to dispense with codes, as long as they had the post-office box. Chang had given him a letter to open on the flight home, too, ‘to keep you company.’ He’d written a little re-telling of a Chinese legend about how people who were destined for each other were connected by a red string tied between their ankles. The string would stretch as long as it had to - he’d drawn a picture of the Earth with the two of them, clearly not to scale, standing on opposite sides, with the string in red ink crossing the globe between them - and it might get tangled - drawing of the two of them looking in bafflement at a red Gordian knot bigger than both of them - but it would never break, and eventually would draw the two together. 

The last page of the letter was taken up with a big drawing of the two of them, running arm in arm in a three-legged race, their ankles tied together with loops of red. Underneath he had written ‘I want to run into the future with you.’ That was so sweet it had made him sniffle. On the other hand, there was a smaller envelope enclosed, marked ‘Open at home,’ which contained a drawing of them naked and kissing and wrapped together by the red string, looping and twining around their bodies just as their limbs twined around each other. Underneath _that_ was a silly little scribbly one of their cocks likewise tied together. With a bow. And a little smiling face on the tip of each.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (At this juncture, I ask my reader to accept a lapse of some time, during which the events of _The Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714_ and _Tintin and the Picaros_ may be assumed to have occurred.)
> 
> also: WARNING. WARNING. ANGSTY CHAPTER.

Dearest Tintin,

A quick note to say I will be on the 16.30 flight on 23 June. I can’t wait to see you. It’s been so long that I might not recognise you, so perhaps you should wear that Picaros costume? I think you made front page news mostly because nobody could quite believe the pictures. Any time I think you might have settled down to a quiet life you pop up saying you think you might have been abducted by aliens, or effecting a coup d’état in South America. On one hand I worry when I haven’t had a letter from you for a while; on the other I know now to assume that you are simply off doing something extremely weird and will resurface before long.

All my love,

Chang

The letter couldn’t have been meant that way, but it felt like salt in a wound. Tintin was regretting the business in San Theodoros more with each passing day, as it became clearer that he had accomplished nothing more than to replace one tinpot dictator with another who happened to be his old friend. All right, they had secured Bianca Castafiore’s freedom, too, and that was a good deed, but he had left the country congratulating himself on effecting a real political change for the better. How had he been so naïve?

He couldn’t put things right in San Theodoros any more than he could in Marlinspike. The Captain and the Professor were not speaking, and any attempt he made to mediate, to broker peace, led to the same furious shouting - that Calculus had no right, that it was a complete violation of his free will, that it was underhanded and unethical and low and skulduggerous, that Haddock was ungrateful and a hopeless drunkard and had to be saved from himself, that lives could be saved with this invention. Tintin had had to beg Nestor to help him separate them before Haddock forgot himself sufficiently to accuse Calculus of acting the goat, or there might have been bloodshed.

So Captain Haddock was miserable and angry and felt betrayed, while Professor Calculus was sulking and brooding and felt unappreciated. It was all he could do to keep Haddock from taking it to court; heaven knew they had had enough embarrassing publicity recently. He felt useless and helpless, and really didn’t want to bring Chang into such an unhappy house, but they had had it planned for so long. About the only thing he had going for him at the moment was that he was getting on with Snowy. His _dog_ still liked him.

And so he stood at the arrivals gate, Snowy flopped at his feet, watching for Chang and nervously gnawing at his lower lip. The Captain had agreed to accompany him, to get out of the house, and then disappeared into the airport bar, saying that if he couldn’t enjoy a drink himself he at least wanted to see other people enjoying them.

‘That just sounds like a way to torture yourself,’ Tintin had objected.

‘It’s all torture now,’ Haddock grumbled, sloping off. Total sobriety was not agreeing with him. He had lost weight and the bags under his eyes were heavier. Perhaps he had had the right idea going somewhere else to wait, because the flight was delayed, and they had been hanging about fruitlessly for three quarters of an hour.

But there he was, Chang, looking around eagerly, his face lighting up as he spotted Tintin and hurried over to hug him. 

‘Oh, it’s so good to see you!’ He had grown a little, though he would clearly never be tall, and was slightly bigger in the chest and the arms; that was clear from the hug.

‘Did you have a good flight?’ He would have liked to prolong the embrace, but it seemed wiser to step back. To their left another reunited couple were kissing happily, and he had to tell himself not to resent them. Chang looked wonderful, at least there was that. He was wearing a green shirt, and he’d always loved him in green.

‘Apart from the delay at the start, fine! We were just starting to lift off when the plane thudded back down, and we had to taxi back to find out what was wrong with it. It was just a part they could replace quickly, and they assured us everything was all right after that, but I was on the edge of my seat all the way here. It’s such a relief to be firmly on the ground!’

‘My poor Chang!’

‘I kept thinking,’ Chang said, crouching down to rub Snowy’s ears and get his hands licked, ‘now, _now,_ when we’re just going to be together again, I’m going to be in another crash.’

‘Well, I’d just have to go and find you again. Speaking of which, we should go and find the Captain. He disappeared into the bar muttering dire things.’

‘I thought he couldn’t drink any more?’ Chang asked, straightening up.

‘He can’t. At least, he’s found that if he sucks enough ice to numb his tongue, he can force a few shots down, and then he sits there grimly concentrating on not bringing it back up long enough to feel some benefit. He was going to try _injecting_ himself with alcohol before I managed to convince him that was mad. There’s no pleasure left in it, but he’s so miserable he just wants to blank it out in some way.’

‘That sounds _terrible,’_ Chang said, aghast.

‘I’m so sorry to bring you into a situation like this.’

‘Nonsense. Now I’m here, I can help you to cope with it. Surely the Professor can make some sort of antidote?’ They wove their way through the terminal towards the bar.

‘Of course he can. He _won’t,_ because he’s stubborn, and because I think he really thinks he’s saving the Captain from himself.’

‘Ah. So we need to work on him.’

‘The hardest thing in the world might be trying to verbally persuade a man who can’t hear you properly and refuses to admit it.’

‘Perhaps we could use mime?’ They entered the bar, which was small, brown and plasticy with a strong smell of smoke, and to Tintin’s great surprise, heard the Captain laughing loudly before they saw him.

‘Tintin!’ he said, swivelling round on his stool. ‘Look who I’ve found! It’s Skut!’

‘Perhaps better say, you stumble over me,’ suggested the pilot. ‘Hallo, Tintin! Is good seeing you again.’

‘He didn’t fall on you again, did he?’ Tintin smiled, shaking his hand. 

‘Yes, but it is all right, because I don’t spill my drink. This is your friend Chang?’

‘Yes - Chang, meet Piotr Skut. I’m sure I’ve told you about him. He was with us in the Red Sea, and on that strange island. And Skut, this is my great friend Chang Chong-chen, here to spend the summer with us before he goes to university. Are you still flying for Mr Carreidas?’

‘No, I don’t fly that old crook any more. He doesn’t want me since I see all that mess, but he has to give me good reference and golden handshake. Airline pilot now, big jets, I tell Captain Haddock.’ He gestured with both hands, as if to show the bigness of the jets, or perhaps of a fish he’d caught.

‘And Captain Haddock invites him back to Marlinspike, because he’s got five days off before his next long-haul flight,’ Haddock put in, patting Skut on the back.

‘Are you sure that’s wise, Captain? Things are a bit... fraught...’

‘That old goat can’t deprive me of every pleasure in life. It’s my house and if I want to bring a friend home I shall. He can sit out in his lab and sulk as long as he pleases. He’s welcome back inside as soon as he’s ready to apologise and make amends.’ Haddock bristled, almost literally, the jut of his chin making his beard stick out aggressively.

‘I don’t want to make things difficult, and you have I think a guest already,’ Skut protested, pointing to Chang.

‘Nonsense. There’s more than enough room. Besides, Chang’s not a guest, he’s more like family by now - aren’t you, lad?’ He clapped Chang on the shoulder, knocking him into Tintin.

‘I’m very honoured that you would say so, Captain.’

‘Good, then, it’s settled. Come on, the pack of you.’

 

Any hope of a peaceful homecoming was shattered when Captain Haddock found Professor Calculus in the kitchen, taking bread and eggs from the larder. 

‘Get out of my house!’ he roared, grabbing one of the remaining eggs and hurling it at him, missing wildly and hitting the fridge. ‘And buy your own food, you parasite! Tapeworm! Lamprey! Chupacabra!’

‘Ingrate! Brute! Serpent’s tooth!’ Calculus, retreating, threw an egg of his own and hit the Captain square on the anchor on his jersey. His face turned an unhealthy crimson and he dived across the kitchen table bellowing. He might have done the Professor some harm if he hadn’t skittered out of the way; he might have done himself some harm if Tintin and Chang, springing forward in unison, hadn’t grabbed the back of his jacket and his right leg to stop him flying head first into the cabinets opposite.

‘Run, Professor!’ Tintin shouted, trying to restrain the thrashing Haddock.

‘I shall never turn tail and run!’ Calculus threw another egg, although this one went wide of the mark, whizzed over Chang’s head and smashed on the face of the clock. ‘Nor shall I stand for being so cruelly maligned! I have done this wretch kindness after kindness! And a lamprey isn’t a parasite!’

‘The funny thing is,’ Tintin observed to Chang, over the Captain’s heaving back, ‘he seems to hear a lot better when he’s angry.’

‘Then he can hear this!’ Haddock roared. ‘Goat! Goat, goat, goat!’

‘Skut! The professor!’ Tintin cried.

‘What?’ 

Calculus uttered a sort of wordless snarl of rage and dashed at Haddock, caught just in time by Skut, who grabbed him around the middle, pinning his arms to his sides, then staggered backwards trying to save his shins from the little man’s drumming heels. Nestor dashed into the kitchen with a polishing cloth in one hand and a silver salver in the other, and dropped them both in horror.

‘I think we could wrap him up in the tablecloth,’ Chang started to say, but abruptly Haddock made a croaking noise, his crimson face turning purple, and clutched at his chest.

‘Captain? Captain!’ Tintin pushed him onto his back. ‘Breathe!’

‘Heart!’ Haddock blurted, his eyes bulging, and hit himself in the chest, spattering their faces with raw egg. ‘Heart!’

‘Nestor, call an ambulance!’

 

The egg white dried on his face and made an itchy tight patch while he sat in a hospital corridor with Snowy on his lap, waiting to hear whether the Captain would be all right. Chang sat beside him, holding his hand, while Skut paced around awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. Professor Calculus had stayed at the house with Nestor, and Skut had driven the two of them to the hospital, following the ambulance, after Tintin had tried to start the car himself and couldn’t get the key into the ignition. He was ashamed of that; he wasn’t someone who went to pieces in an emergency, just the opposite, he was _invigorated_ by crises, and yet his hands had kept shaking until Chang pressed them between both his. 

After a painfully long time, a doctor came to them, his shoes squeaking on the shiny floor. ‘Mr Tintin? You’re Captain Haddock’s next of kin?’

‘Yes,’ he said, getting up, before thinking about whether he really was. He was in his will, after all. _Oh great heavens. His will. No no no._

‘Then I have good news. He’s out of danger and resting comfortably.’

‘Oh, thank goodnesss.’ He felt dizzy with relief and sat down abruptly. ‘He had a heart attack, though, didn’t he?’

‘Not a true heart attack. We call that a myocardial infarction,’ the doctor explained, sitting down beside them as Skut came over to hear. ‘What the Captain experienced was a combined attack of arrhythmia and angina, brought on by stress. The symptoms of chest pain and palpitations were, obviously, alarming, and you did absolutely right to call the ambulance. They do indicate that he’s at risk of a heart attack, but with proper care and some medication we can guard against that.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Tintin said again. ‘He’s had an attack before. Perhaps not really an attack. When we came back from the Moon, he took a long time to regain consciousness, and the doctor then was afraid his heart had given out. May I see him? Is it safe?’

‘Yes, for a short time. Then he’ll need complete rest. It’s important that he isn’t agitated again. I’d like to keep him here for observation, then when we’re sure he’s stable he can go home. You can come back tomorrow, of course.’

The Captain was sitting propped up on pillows, looking wan and peevish.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ was the first thing he said when Tintin walked in.

‘It’s all right.’ He sat down on the bed and patted Haddock’s hand. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Spoiled everything with my tantrum,’ Haddock muttered. ‘Must’ve been embarrassing for you. Must look a blistering fool to Skut.’

‘I don’t think he’s too shocked. Anyway, the only thing for you to concentrate on now is getting well. I’ll bring your things from home tomorrow, your own pyjamas and a book or two.’

‘Will you tell Calculus I’m sorry?’

‘Of course.’

‘About today. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him.’

Tintin sighed. ‘Of course.’

 

In the car on the way home Chang leaned over and said ‘I was thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Didn’t you say that drug the Professor came up with was a herbal formula? That should mean a good herbalist can work out what’s in it, and develop an antidote, even if he won’t. You should find someone who can do it in any city with a Chinatown.’

‘Is a good idea,’ Skut said from the driver’s seat. ‘After I hurt my head and lose my eye in crash, I get terrible headaches. Chinese herbalist in Singapore makes me pills, his wife puts needles in my head, I get better.’

‘That _is_ a good idea. Thank you. I was going to try to get some analysed by a chemist, but he keeps them under lock and key in his lab. I haven’t the heart to break in there.’

 

When they got in, Calculus was sitting on a chair in the hall, drumming his fingers on his knee. To Tintin’s surprise, he was wearing his old hearing-aid.

‘Is Archibald all right?’ he asked without preamble.

‘Yes. He’s not very well, but he’s going to recover.’

‘Ah. Good.’ He got up and walked up to Tintin, took his hand and put a small bottle into the palm. ‘If it means so much to him, I suppose he may as well drink himself to death. This is an antidote. The effects should be fully reversed within a week. I’m very sorry for how this has affected you - and you understand, I’m doing this more for you than for him.’ He lifted his head and took a deep sniff. ‘I shall be going away for a while. An American pharmaceutical firm _is_ interested in my invention. I shall send you a forwarding address for my post.’

‘Professor, please don’t. He asked me to tell you he’s sorry. At least go to see him tomorrow.’

‘I appreciate your good intentions, Tintin, but I’m afraid things have gone too far for that.’

‘Then sleep on it. There’s no need to set off tonight, is there?’

‘Thank you, but I must be going.’ He turned and walked away, through the doorway beneath the staircase. Tintin felt Chang’s hand slip into his, and Snowy pushed his nose against his leg and whined.

‘Do you want me to go after him?’ Chang asked. ‘I know I don’t know him very well, but sometimes it’s harder to say no to an outsider.’

‘You’re not an outsider.’ He squeezed Chang’s hand, and knelt down to reassure Snowy with a pat.

‘Perhaps I go now?’ Skut said uncertainly.

‘You needn’t. It’s late now. Stay here tonight, and you can decide what to do in the morning.’

 

Chang came into his room once the house was quiet, and crept into bed behind him, wrapping his arms around him.

‘I don’t want to -’

‘Of course not. I’m just here to be a blanket.’


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say I'm not very pleased with this portion, but I'm trying to keep moving.

He was woken at some darkling hour by Tintin urgently whispering ‘Chang?’

‘Wha’s wrong?’ The answer was a long, wet kiss. ‘Oh, you’ve changed your mind.’

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘I’m _so_ glad.’ He wrapped his arms tightly around him, pushed one leg up between his thighs as they kissed. ‘I missed you so much, and I was trying so hard to be _good_ if you were upset, but, ohh, I’m glad!’

‘I wanted so much to kiss you at the airport. You know, don’t you, if the Captain hadn’t come along I’d have driven you to the nearest place to hide the car and had you in the back seat?’

‘Oh, really? That’s terrible. Like American teenagers!’

‘I think there has to be a film playing in the background for that.’

‘Or at least a record.’ He slipped his hand into the waist of Tintin’s pyjamas, feeling the warmth of his stiffening cock, the lovely way it twitched and surged harder as he touched it.

‘My darling!’ A deep, hard kiss, a thrust into his palm, Tintin’s hand reaching down between them, stroking him, drawing him out, bringing them together.

‘Oh... oh... Tintin, please...’

‘Mm?’ Warm, wet mouth on his neck, hips grinding against his.

‘Just like that... yes... ah...’

‘Oh, Chang... wait, I can’t see a thing. Close your eyes and I’ll turn on the light.’ Chang felt Tintin lift himself and lean over, and closed his eyes. Click, and rosy light through his lids. ‘All right... open.’

‘No, I like this, everything looks pink and orange.’

‘Open.’ A kiss on his right eyelid, his left.

‘Oh, all right. Look, everything _still_ looks pink and orange.’ He ran his hand from Tintin’s flushed cheek into his hair.

‘Don’t be cheeky. Oh, you’re so beautiful. Golden.’ Kissing again, slow and deep, tongues surging and lips burning, hips rocking together, cocks rubbing on Chang’s belly.

‘Love you...’

‘I love you... _oh...’_

 

Warmth, and quiet, and the utter comfort of Tintin’s body pressed against his as he woke. He had a different bed in his room now, a large double one, and Chang wondered when he had changed that, if it had been just for him. The old bed had been a sort of wide single - room enough for both of them if they curled up together. Now there was room for, perhaps, another person on either side of them, because they were still curled up together in the middle of the bed. Tintin was still sleeping, one arm under the pillow beneath his head and the other draped over Chang’s waist as they lay face to face, their legs stickily tangled. The collar of his pyjama jacket was turned up over his cheek, and Chang folded it down and stroked his face, careful, small movements, trying not to wake him.

 _I am really here with him again. Here in Marlinspike, in his room, in his bed. This is the beginning of_ our _real life together._

He realised now that Tintin had changed his haircut just a little bit; he was wearing his sideburns longer, or to put it another way, actually _had_ sideburns now. The idea of his Tintin trying to be more fashionable - and those awful brown jeans he’d been wearing the day before must be another attempt - made him smile fondly, biting his lip so the smile didn’t become a laugh. _Oh, my sweetheart, you don’t need to do that._

He disentangled himself with care and eased out of bed, pulling up his pants and pushing his feet into his slippers. In honour of the new bed, and just generally in honour of new starts, he thought he’d try to make Tintin breakfast in bed. Snowy gave him a reproachful look from the foot of the bed, then wriggled up to take advantage of the warm spot he’d left. Chang rumpled his ears, then set off downstairs. All was quiet, early morning sunshine beginning to leak through the high windows of the Hall. He had the slightly off-kilter sensation of familiarity with a house he hadn’t been in for a couple of years. A few pieces of furniture had been moved and there were new curtains in the kitchen.

There was also Skut, sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee. He looked up as Chang came in and said ‘Oh, good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ Chang said a little shyly. The pilot was in pyjamas too, and for some reason it surprised Chang that he wore his eyepatch with them. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes, thank you. This a fine house. You too?’

‘Yes.’ He put the kettle on and found the bread to make toast, not that he could cook much more. ‘Do you want some?’ Even if he was technically a guest too, he was closer to being someone who lived here than Skut was, so he should be hospitable.

‘Oh, yes please. I come down and I’m not sure - do I make my breakfast or wake up Nestor? And I don’t know where he is.’

‘It’s fine - he always gets up and makes breakfast to serve at eight, but you can get your own whenever you like.’ He was glad to find that the trays with legs were still in the same cupboard.

‘Then I make bacon eggs. Do you want?’ Skut pushed back his chair and got up.

‘Oh, no thanks. I’m just taking tea and toast upstairs. I thought it would be nice for Tintin.’

‘You take him breakfast in bed?’ 

‘Um - ‘ Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that.

‘You are gay boys, yes? I think but I don’t ask.’

‘No!’ Chang squeaked, feeling his face flood red.

‘Is O.K. Me too. Not boy, but you know.’ Skut opened a cabinet, looking for a frying pan.

‘How did you know? We weren’t acting like it! I - I mean I held his hand, but that was at the hospital, I was just being his friend.’ His heart was beating fast with panic.

‘Is how you look at each other. You don’t worry, I never say anything. Me too. I understand.’ Skut patted his arm. 

‘Really?’ 

‘You don’t worry. Calm down. You go red like tomato.’ Skut was laughing, though not unkindly. ‘You are lucky boy. Where is frying pan?’

‘I think it’s in that cupboard there.’

‘You sit down, catch breath, I make bacon eggs, you take upstairs and Tintin thinks you are best boyfriend in world.’ Skut gave him a sunny smile and another pat on the shoulder. He set to work, with a tea-towel apron tucked into the waist of his pyjama pants, while Chang subsided at the table, feeling weak with relief.

Trying not to be so self-centred, he asked ‘Er, what are you planning to do next? To stay here?’

‘I don’t know,’ Skut said, cracking eggs. ‘Very happy to see Captain and Tintin again, staying here sounds good, but if Captain is sick, maybe I don’t stay. Maybe only trouble for them. But then maybe I help. I can’t know. I want to see them before now, but I don’t know do they have time.’

‘According to Tintin, the Captain’s been absolutely miserable lately, but when he saw you he was laughing and happy. It would be nice if you stayed, I think - you would cheer him up.’

‘Oh, really?’ The bacon and eggs were sizzling loudly now and beginning to smell good; Skut poked at them with a spatula. ‘Since we tell each other our secrets, I tell you I like the Captain very much. Big strong man, beard, hairy arms, I like all this, and he is funny, kind, _good_ man. I’m glad he’s happy to see me. But I never know, I guess you and Tintin, but I don’t know does he feel, you know. I think when I meet them that they are together, but no, so then I wonder do I get him wrong.’ He shrugged expressively.

Chang wasn’t sure what to say; he knew enough to think Skut might have a chance, but it wasn’t his place to tell. It might even be unkind to encourage him, if he just wasn’t the Captain’s type. He himself thought Skut rather handsome, but there was no accounting for taste. ‘I can’t ever really tell,’ he said. ‘About other people, I mean. He certainly _likes_ you. Would it be hard on you to stay here if he doesn’t fancy you?’

‘No,’ said Skut with another shrug. ‘I don’t get hopes up. Is nice just to stay with friends instead of hotel. Now! Bacon eggs, get me a plate.’

He carried the tray up carefully, but found to his disappointment that Tintin was already out of bed, doing some sort of headstand against the wall.

‘Oh! Good morning. I wondered where you’d got to,’ Tintin said, wagging one bare foot at him companionably.

‘I thought breakfast in bed would be nice. What on earth are you doing?’ He put the tray on the floor and crouched down to look him in the face.

‘Yoga. This one’s called Sirsasana. It’s terrifically good for your back. I can do it for two minutes before I start to feel odd.’

‘You do _yoga?’_

‘Don’t say it in that voice. It’s very good for you - strength, balance, flexibility.’

‘You should try tai chi, then. Do you want me to feed you bacon while you’re upside down?’

‘I think that would be terrible for my digestion.’

‘Yoga’s a bit _trendy.’_

‘It’s hundreds of years old. Stand clear, I need to bring my legs down.’ He lowered them and rolled over into a sitting position, his face flushed. ‘Thank you for breakfast, though!’

‘Breakfast on floor, instead of breakfast in bed.’ Chang offered him a slice of toast and he took a bite. ‘Perhaps we won’t make that part of our morning routine.’

‘I tell you what - we’ll have yoga on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and tai chi on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. On Sunday we’ll just sleep in.’

‘What an excellent plan.’ 

‘Then after our exercises, a nice bath?’

‘Oh, yes please.’

 

The three of them went to the hospital that afternoon, where the Captain was looking considerably more perky. He received the antidote with eager relief, but was clearly dismayed to hear of Calculus’ departure.

‘Did he leave any address?’ he asked.

‘He said he’d send one,’ Tintin said. ‘I believe he’s going to America, but he didn’t say which bit.’ He was sitting in the visitor’s chair, as the official visitor and next of kin, while Chang perched awkwardly on the foot of the bed. He was trying to work out in his own mind exactly where the boundaries lay at the moment; the Captain knew about him and Tintin, Skut knew about him and Tintin but didn’t know the Captain knew, he hadn’t told Tintin about Skut or Skut about Haddock because in both cases he felt he would be betraying a confidence (though perhaps he _should_ tell Tintin about Skut since Tintin had told him about Haddock?) - therefore, how should he behave? Perhaps he should just try to act normal. They were in a hospital, after all.

‘I don’t like him going off on his own like that. Things _happen_ to Cuthbert, and half the time he doesn’t even notice.’ Haddock nodded towards Skut, who was hovering near the window. ‘Sorry. Not much of a holiday for you. All going well, I should be allowed home tomorrow, but I shan’t be up to much.’

‘Is all right. You feel better, is main thing. We can still have good times.’

‘I can go and look for the Professor if you want me to,’ Tintin offered. 

‘No, no. Let him cool off, I suppose. But if we haven’t heard from him in a week or two, perhaps you might make enquiries.’

Tintin was glum in the car on the way back, although he drove this time. 

‘I’ll help you look for him,’ Chang offered. 

‘Maybe you don’t even need to,’ Skut suggested, leaning over the back of the seat. ‘Maybe he go so far, he get homesick, he come back. Like when children get angry with parents, run away. I do three times.’

‘He’s a grown man, though.’

‘All right, but he miss Captain, he misses you. I don’t think he stays right away long.’ Skut gave Tintin’s shoulder a friendly pat. ‘And you don’t worry. You have nice time with your friend, he comes all the way from China!’

‘You make me sound imported,’ Chang said, laughing.

‘Rare expensive imported friend. Only one like this. You enjoy him!’ Skut grinned.

‘What about you?’ Chang asked. ‘What are you going to do for the rest of the day?’

‘I go for a run, I think, get exercise. Get very cramped on a plane for long flight, when I have time off I like to run around. Maybe swim. Anywhere to swim?’

‘The river,’ Chang suggested. ‘At least, you can splash around. It’s not really deep enough anywhere to swim.’

‘We have a pool now, actually,’ Tintin said.

‘Really? I didn’t know that.’

‘Did I never mention it? The Captain had it dug in the spring. It’s a bit strange-looking, because he wanted it in keeping with the rest of the house, so it’s a sort of neo-classical swimming pool, with a mosaic haddock picked out on the bottom. We haven’t used it much yet because it hasn’t been warm enough.’

‘Good! I go running, get hot, go swimming in cold pool, perfect.’

He was as good as his word, and jogged off in a little pair of red shorts not long after they returned to the Hall. Chang saw him off, with a suggestion about which way to go through the woods, and went back inside to find Tintin in the sitting-room, slouching in a chair half-heartedly scratching Snowy’s ears as the dog lay across his lap. Chang sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and put his chin on Tintin’s knee. 

‘All right then, you too,’ Tintin said with a half-smile, and scratched behind Chang’s ear.

‘Are you blue?’

‘A little bit. I wish I knew what to do to sort all this out. But then I wonder if I should be trying to sort things out at all.’

‘But sorting things out is what you _do._ You’re brilliant at it.’

‘No I’m not. Not any more, anyway. Have you seen what happened in San Theodoros? I came back thinking I’d done such a wonderful job, pulled off a bloodless coup, saved the country from turmoil, and two weeks later that _Time_ report came out. Did you see it? The first two pages, that photo spread? On the left they had a picture of a slum, hungry ragged people, two apathetic police patrolling, a _Viva Tapioca_ billboard, and on the right, it was all the same, just different uniforms on the police and _Viva Alcazar._ That told the whole story, really, but that didn’t stop them giving four pages to making it quite clear.’

‘Oh, Tintin... but one time that didn’t go as well as usual doesn’t outweigh all the successes.’

‘What if I’ve been just as deluded about all of those?’

‘You know that’s not true. You’re upset and doubting yourself, but if we went back through your scrapbooks you’d see.’

‘I’m ridiculous. I keep scrapbooks of my clippings.’

‘One day someone’s going to want to write your biography and they’ll be very glad you did that. Speaking of writing, how’s the Moon book going? You haven’t told me anything about it for a while.’

‘It’s stalled.’

‘You should get back to it. It’s a wonderful story.’

‘I don’t think I can write anything that long. I just do articles.’

‘Tintin! Of course you can. Do it a bit at a time, then put the bits together. I loved the bits I got to read.’

‘Oh, well, you always love my bits.’

‘At least you’re smiling. Come on, let’s go and do something nice. Show me the new pool. Or something else new you haven’t told me about yet.’

‘I do have a motorcycle now.’

‘Go on, then - take me for a ride.’


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No of course I haven't moved the plot along. I'm just writing makeouts and sex at this point.  
> And Skut being adorable.

They took the bike out through the countryside, Chang riding pillion and hanging onto Tintin’s waist so tightly he suspected he’d fibbed slightly about not being scared to go fast. It felt so nice to have him clinging there, chin on his shoulder, that he sped up, tilting them over at the corners.

‘Now lean with me - there! Good!’ With the thrum of the engine under him and the wind in his face, concentrating only on controlling the motorcycle, he successfully forgot about everything else for a while. It was a warm breezy day with a white sky, occasional shreds of watery blue showing through. He took them up a winding lane, close to the top of a small grassy hill, and they climbed the rest of the way to sit looking out at the gentle, slightly lumpy landscape of Marlinshire, like a green and brown bedspread after a night of restless sleep, while daisies, buttercups and dandelions nodded and tossed their heads around them. He lay down on his back, arms pillowing his head, and gazed up into the sky, while Chang settled on his belly, swinging his feet in the air, and started piecing together a daisy chain.

‘Feel better?’ Chang asked.

‘Much.’

‘Good. I want you to be as happy as I am. Here I am, I get to study photography and art, and I get to see you all the time, and everything is going to be wonderful, though I don’t deserve it.’

‘Of course you deserve to study photography and art. You’re really good.’ Tintin reached over and tweaked Chang’s nose affectionately.

‘It’s a good thing Mr Lee encouraged me to enter so many competitions - apparently that made my application stand out. So really I owe that to him.’

‘Quite beside the fact that you won prizes in those competitions because your photos were so good. Do you really think these things, or just say them because it’s Chinese manners?’

‘I... I suppose it’s a bit of both? Does it not sound normal to you?’ He looked up from his daisies anxiously.

‘It’s all right. It’s just part of you. So I love it along with all the rest.’

‘And now I get to hear you saying you love me, all the time, which is so much better than just reading it.’ A shining smile.

‘I love you dearly.’ The smile got broader, and he felt his own face mirroring it. ‘That is a bit wonderful, isn’t it?’

‘Perfectly wonderful.’ Chang concentrated on his daisy chain for a minute, then said, ‘There’s something I ought to tell you.’

‘Mm?’

‘It’s a bit complicated. You know Skut?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Tintin rolled onto his front, propped on his elbows, and reached out to pick some daisies growing further away; Chang had picked all the long-stemmed ones growing near him.

‘This morning he told me something, and it’s private, but it will be awkward for you not to know, and I don’t _think_ he would mind me telling you.’

‘Oh?’ He gathered the daisies together in the palm of his hand and put them in a little pile in front of Chang.

‘The thing is, he says he’s gay too.’

‘Oh.’ That was startling, and somehow... embarrassing? His face felt hot, at any rate. ‘Why on earth did he tell you that?’

‘Because he’d worked out that _we_ are, and that we’re in love. He was telling me not to worry, that he understood and wouldn’t give us away. Really, he was so nice about the whole thing. Just kind and friendly, and it’s the first time I’ve ever talked about it with someone apart from you, so it felt funny, but nice too. Companionable. I suppose the way it is for you to talk to Andrew.’

‘All right,’ Tintin said. He was trying to tell himself that it was weirdly unreasonable to feel jealous about this. It wasn’t as if Chang had kept it a secret; he had just waited for a good, private time to tell him about it, when they wouldn’t be interrupted. 

‘And the other thing he told me, which could be important, is that he really likes the Captain, but isn’t sure whether he’s interested. _So_ I was wondering if it would be a good idea for us to tell him about the Captain, or tell the Captain about him, or tell each of them about the other, or if we should just not say anything and let them work it out for themselves.’

‘Definitely leave it up to them,’ Tintin said quickly. He couldn’t conceive of anything more awkward than trying to match-make for Captain Haddock. ‘They’re grown men, after all.’

‘But what if nothing happens, and they miss out on being happy together?’

‘It’s really not our business. Do you remember that one big talk that he and I had about it, after I came back from seeing you? He’s never mentioned it again. His part of it, or the fact that you and I are together. He talks about you as my friend, and asks after you when I get a letter, and I say you’re well and send him your regards. That’s all. It would make the Captain horribly uncomfortable - and to tell the truth, me too.’

‘Oh... I’m sorry...’ Chang looked dismayed.

‘No, no, no, you haven’t done anything wrong. You just want to help, because you’re sweet and kind. I love that in you.’

‘It’s a good thing you told me before I put my foot in it. I certainly don’t want to cause any problems for the Captain.’

‘You won’t. Don’t fret.’ He leaned over and dabbed a quick kiss on Chang’s cheek. There was no-one about to see, so after a moment’s hesitation he tipped his head to kiss his lips. Chang rested his forehead against his, brushed his nose from side to side across the tip of his, and for a moment he felt perfectly happy. Everything else seemed suspended, with the breeze stroking their backs and the smell of crushed grass and wildflowers around them. Daisies had a _smell_ that you didn’t usually notice, but when you had a handful of them in front of you, wilting gently in the early summer warmth, it was there, sweet and slightly musky. And Chang was warmer still, and part of him wanted to roll him over and try to make love there on the hillside, while other bits argued that it was far too risky, and that it would spoil a moment that he wanted to carefully wrap up in white paper, tie with red string and save in his heart.

 

Back at the Hall, there was a little pile of sweaty shirt and running shoes on the side of the swimming pool and Skut was swimming laps, still in his little red shorts. He splashed over to the edge when they approached, hand in hand, and crossed his arms on the marble. ‘Tintin! Is a pool from a palace!’ he said.

‘The Captain may have overdone it a bit,’ Tintin said, patting the head of one of the bronze dolphins that spouted water from their beaks into the pool. ‘He found a very excitable designer.’

‘The water isn’t too cold, is it?’ Chang asked, sitting down on the edge and taking his shoes off to dabble his feet.

‘No, is good. I pull you in, you see!’ Skut feinted a grab at an ankle and backed off laughing when Chang kicked water at him. ‘Maybe next time, the Captain builds a sauna?’ he added hopefully. ‘Cold swim after a sauna is very good.’

‘Oh, don’t give him ideas,’ Tintin said, leaning on the dolphin. ‘You couldn’t know, but he’s a terrible man for fads. A bit like Toad of Toad Hall.’

‘What is fads?’ Skut asked, hauling himself back up onto the pool rim.

‘Short-lived enthusiasms. Passions that don’t go anywhere. He’ll take up a hobby and pursue it like a mad thing for a few weeks, then drop it.’

‘Is strange,’ Skut said. ‘He seems me very loyal man, very... dedicate? Dedicated?’ He turned to Chang. ‘You speak so good English, I want to try harder. You hear me, I talk like idiot.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’

‘He _is_ very loyal and dedicated, as a friend,’ Tintin said. ‘There’s nobody I trust more. He’ll just occasionally take it into his head that he’s going to learn magic, or become an oenophile...’

‘Or take up yoga,’ Chang murmured, as if to himself.

‘Quiet, you. If I wanted sarcastic comments I’d teach Snowy to speak.’ He jerked his head towards the terrace at the rear of the Hall, where Snowy was sleeping with his tummy turned up to the sun.

‘Oh, come on. I worked out once that it was only because of a fad of yours that we ever got to meet. D’you remember? You went to Shanghai because of a coded signal that you picked up while messing about with a shortwave radio set.’

‘And because of a Chinaman who went mad while I was talking to him. Don’t forget him.’

‘It started with the radio, though. So if that hadn’t happened, all the rest wouldn’t have happened, and I would have drowned instead of you pulling me out of the river.’

‘They save me from drowning when I meet them too!’ Skut said. ‘Well, not drowning, I had life-jacket... I had _a_ life-jacket... but they pull me up on their raft.’

‘It seemed only fair when I shot down your plane in the first place.’

‘This how Tintin meets new people,’ Skut told Chang. ‘Go up and say hello too ordinary for him.’

‘Perhaps when he shot at you he was only trying to get your attention.’

‘He shot at me first,’ Tintin protested.

‘I’m sorry. Shake hands.’ Skut offered a wet hand.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Tintin said, but accepted it. Skut gave him a beaming smile, then abruptly heaved and pulled him over into the water. He surfaced just in time to be swamped by the splash as Chang jumped in after him, shouting ‘I’ll save you!’ Together they managed to duck Skut twice before he took Chang hostage and towed him off towards the shallow end. Chang might have fought back, but was laughing too hard.

‘Why you taking clothes off, Tintin? What you think this is?’ Skut shouted.

‘I can’t _move_ all waterlogged.’ Tintin dragged off his soaking jumper over his head, threw it over the side of the pool and struggled out of his cords. ‘Now you’ll see!’ _What_ do _I think this is? What does he think - is this just a friends’ game or - he’d better not be touching Chang under the water._ He suddenly wasn’t sure he felt friendly towards Skut; a hot stab of jealousy went through him at the thought of those big blond-haired arms wrapping around Chang’s precious little body. To his further confusion, that also made him hard. None of this was conducive to swimming properly, and he went under and got water up his nose before he reached the other two.

‘I see you don’t swim too good!’

‘Unhand him, you pirate.’ _It’s just silly, it’s just fun, don’t think ill of him._ He made a grab at them and missed.

‘No, I think I keep him.’ Skut skidded off sideways, one arm looped around Chang’s chest. ‘You don’t mind, hey Chang?’

‘Of course I _mind,’_ said Chang, squirming and laughing. ‘Rescue me, Tintin!’

‘Oh, well, if you _mind,’_ Skut said, and shoved him at Tintin so that they collided and both went under. Tintin surfaced with a gasp and Chang’s arms around him, and then his lips on his, a deep, wet kiss, a confusion of hot tongue and cold water, and the overwhelming shock and shame and thrill of doing this where someone could _see_ them, even someone who should be safe.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked breathlessly. _I wish Skut would disappear and we could come together right now. Oh, Lord, he’s hard too, it’s poking into me, that’s for_ me _not stupid Skut._

‘Of course I’m all right.’ Another kiss; wasn’t Chang embarrassed at all? It didn’t feel like it. He threw caution to the wind and grabbed his bottom with both hands, squeezing tight, felt Chang’s hips twitch hard.

‘I go, leave you alone,’ Skut was saying somewhere in the distant background. He was bobbing backwards, getting the wall of the pool behind him, bracing his feet; Chang was wrapping his legs around him, wiry and strong. He took one hand off his bottom and thrust it down the back of his trousers, shoving and wriggling between soft skin and clinging wet cloth until he could get his fingers down into the cleft and push the tip of the middle one into him.

‘Good?’

‘Good. Let me take them off.’ He had to take his finger out as Chang squirmed out of trousers and pants, splashing and panting, but he got it back in just as soon as he could, screwing it slowly inward and catching Chang’s moans in his mouth. The water helped; it would have been easier with the little tin of Vaseline that must by now have sunk to the bottom of the pool in the pocket of his cords. Chang’s hand was down between them, freeing his cock from his underwear and pressing them together, warm in the cool water. ‘I love you,’ he whimpered, ‘love you so.’

‘Can I? Do you think...’

‘Yes. _Yes._ I want it in me, I _always_ want it in me.’ It wasn’t easy, slipping and bumping, but with Chang’s eager help he got the head of it in, wrapped up tight in hot soft flesh, and then they inched it deeper between them, taking turns to push, Tintin’s hands clutching at Chang’s hips, until he could reach no further and those wiry legs were wrapped tight around his waist again, and Chang was kissing him, sucking his tongue, grunting softly in his throat as he ground down on him. It always amazed him how much Chang _loved_ his cock inside him; when they’d tried the other way he had enjoyed it, yes, but it hadn’t done this to him. He sometimes thought Chang might actually enjoy their sex more than he did, at least until they were in the middle of it again and _this_ feeling started, the deep sweet heat that grew and grew, filled his cock and his balls and his belly, peaked and burst and left him weak and grateful.

He drifted, leaning against the wall, stroking Chang’s back, until he realised the water really did feel cold, mostly because Chang gave a little shiver.

‘Come on. Let’s get out and get warm.’

‘Mmm... no.’

‘No?’

‘No, let’s stay stuck together for always.’ He nuzzled at Tintin’s shoulder and kissed the side of his neck.

‘You’re cold, my darling, and so am I. Come on.’ He pulled out, although Chang whined, and nudged him towards the curved steps at the corner of the shallow end.

‘I can’t get out. I’ve got a bare bottom. The whole world will see.’

‘Well, I can still pull my pants up, so I’ll get out and bring you a towel.’ The excitable designer had done things thoroughly; there was a little pavilion beside the pool with a small bar inside it and shelves to hold towels and trunks and inflatable mattresses. He staggered out of the pool, wobbly-legged in his saturated shirt and underpants, shocked at how _heavy_ he felt getting out of the water; it was a bit like the feeling of coming back to Earth gravity after being on the Moon. Inside the pavilion he peeled off the wet clothing and rubbed himself more or less dry before wrapping the damp towel around his waist and going back to Chang with another one. He was sitting on the steps with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

‘We’ve made a bit of a mess of this pool,’ he remarked, nodding at the various articles of clothing floating or sunken in it. Skut’s running shoes had been kicked in at some point, probably when Tintin fell in or Chang jumped.

‘I’ll get them out with the thing. The net on the pole. Come on, out of there; let me dry you off.’

‘Will it damage the pool that we came in it?’ Chang asked seriously as he wrapped the towel around him. ‘I mean, the water won’t go funny, will it?’

‘I don’t know. We can put more chlorine in, I suppose. You smell like it now.’

‘So do you.’

‘What would you say to a nice hot shower?’

‘Yes, please.’

They couldn’t seem to stop now, in the bathtub under the shower, in Chang’s bed afterwards, rolling together again and again until they were both sweetly sore and exhausted and realising that it had grown dark outside without either of them noticing.

‘We’re not being very good hosts to poor old Skut,’ Chang murmured. He was lying beside Tintin, half on top of him, head pillowed on his shoulder, one leg draped over and between his, one arm laid over him to hold his hand on the far side. He had the same sort of look on his face as the Captain’s Siamese cat when it basked in front of the fire and got its chin tickled. 

‘I think he understands.’ He was sorry now that he’d been so angry with Skut, and glad that he’d managed not to show it. ‘Because you’re so beautiful, and I’ve only just got you back... he must be envious, though.’

‘Pfft. I doubt he wants _me._ He said himself, he likes big strong men with beards and hairy arms.’

‘Silly him, then.’ He stretched contentedly and kissed Chang’s forehead. ‘But lucky me. Lucky, lucky me.’

‘Mmmm.’ 


End file.
